One of the great advantages to publishing digital media, in this case books, is the reading experience.  Unlike traditional, print books, readers are presented with a dynamic platform that can be controlled.

A “click” can take us, for example, from chapter one to forty-seven in an instant whereas in traditional books, we’d have to turn many pages to get there and would need a bookmark to remember where we were.

In electronic publications, readers are given a kind of control they previously did not have.  They are able to interact with the e-publication in a non-static manner.  In a way, the book almost becomes “alive” in their hands.  No longer a series of pages that one must manually turn in order to advance in the story, the book is transformed into one “fluid image of words” whose appearance can instantly change.

The screen

Unlike a print book that we hold in our hands and whose pages we must turn to delve deeper into the story, the e-book is presented on a screen.  It could be found on any one of a series of mobile or stationary devices (e.g., Amazon’s Kindle), yet will needs be a screen.  This means that whereas in print media we come into direct contact with the book in our hands, in the digital version, we are separated by a screen.  The screen, in a way, is therefore both the facilitator of our reading experience as well as its moderator.  It is the medium through or by which we reach our chosen medium (i.e., e-book).

That which prevents us from “touching,” so to speak, the object of our curiosity in the same breath enables us to see it in an unconventional and enhanced manner.  A combination of the screen and touch pad or mouse allows us to read the end of the story before we’ve read the beginning.  Alternatively, we can also instantly hop to the middle and go back to the beginning or end.  The point is that we no longer have to wait to get the information we want.  We can have it effortlessly now.  Past, present and future are seemingly melded into one.

In California, a group of school children were taken to see some older model telephones on display.  One of them finally said, “Oh, I get it!  You have to stick your finger in the hole and turn.”  He was, of course, referring to the plastic, rotating dial on the front of rotary-dial telephones that needed to be turned in order to compose a number.

Although we may read this and chuckle, most of us would never dream of giving up our touch pads or buttons (stationary or mobile), not to speak of our Skype connection.

A certain order

There is a certain order in the evolution of things including things technological.  There is a certain adaptation, too, a certain willingness to evolve along with it that is required on our part.  If we want the effortless ease of the seamless and interactive reading experience, we must adapt to the new model.

By Dhscommtech at English Wikipedia