Last week, the New York Times published an article exploring how the advent of eBooks have changed us. Does the Brain Like E-Books explores how our reading culture has changed over the years, and how yet another change is coming as eBooks become more and more prevalent.

This issue is gaining more and more traction as firms left and right begin to launch their "tablets" or "eReaders". Many of the big boys have already had one out for years, most notably Sony and Amazon's Kindle.  And one of biggest boy of them all, Apple, has been rumoured for months to be releasing their own eReader version. (Any guesses on what it'll be called? iTablet? iPad? or simply iMakeLotsOfMoney?)

So what does this all mean to us? The New York Time's article asked five experts in the fields of linguistics, child development and computer science and their responses were eye-opening. Their views (followed by my comments in italics) are summarized briefly below:

Alan Liu is chairman and professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara:
"My group thinks that Web 2.0 offers a different kind of metaphor: not a containing structure but a social experience. Reading environments should not be books or libraries. They should be like the historical coffeehouses, taverns and pubs where one shifts flexibly between focused and collective reading — much like opening a newspaper and debating it in a more socially networked version of the current New York Times Room for Debate."

I can't say I agree. I use reading as a way to destress and get away from people, not to socialize. That's what sports are for!

Sandra Aamodt is a former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience:
"To a great extent, the computer’s usefulness for serious reading depends on the user’s strength of character. Distractions abound on most people’s computer screens."

You're telling me - I've been trying to write this post for four days now!

Maryanne Wolf is the John DiBiaggio Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts:
"I have no doubt that the new mediums will accomplish many of the goals we have for the reading brain, particularly the motivation to learn to decode, read and experience the knowledge that is available. As a cognitive neuroscientist, however, I believe we need rigorous research about whether the reading circuit of our youngest members will be short-circuited, figuratively and physiologically."

This is my favourite take on this subject.  My summary however, doesn't do it justice.  So I highly recommend that you read her entire view.

David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University:
"The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in."

I wonder what Mr. McLuhan would think today.

Gloria Mark is a professor in the Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine:
"Hypertext offers loads of advantages. If while reading online you come across the name “Antaeus” and forget your Greek mythology, a hyperlink will take you directly to an online source where you are reminded that he was the Libyan giant who fought Hercules. And if you’re prone to distraction, you can follow another link to find out his lineage, and on and on. That is the duality of hyperlinks. A hyperlink brings you to information faster but is also more of a distraction."

For those, like me, who didn't forget who Antaeus was simply because you never knew in the first place...voila! Ah, the beauty of the hyperlink.

Five differrent view points of what this new technology means to us as social creatures and creatures of habit.
At Little Heroes, we've found that kids enjoy both formats - physical and electronic. Children want to see and touch a real book, but the allure of the glowing screen is too much to resist.  They really enjoy interacting with their personalized eBook. Can the two mediums continue to exist in parallel, or will the two merge into an even better medium? Only time will tell.

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