My birthday was last week, though I unfortunately had to spend the majority of the day taking an evil standardized test. How’s that for bad timing? My parents were gracious and awesome enough to offer me an Amazon Kindle for my birthday, which we’ve written about some before. Now, after about a week of fairly regular first-hand use, I’m ready to offer some more thoughts.
When I first turned it on and downloaded a free sample chapter, the thing that most struck me about the Kindle was that, man… this thing is slow. Every button press is followed by at least a one second pause — a considerable delay in today’s high tech world. For a device that promises to usher in the next evolution of reading, I was perplexed at first. Where’s the gee-whiz slickness, the instant page-turns, the animation? (Amazon’s explains the slight delays by pointing to the E-Ink display, which at its current stage of development requires a little longer to render).
Ironically enough, however, I’ve almost come to appreciate the delay. Just as the E-Ink display mimics the ocular experience of the printed book, so do these delays mimic the time required to turn a page. It’s a subtle reminder when you continue to the next page that it is just that — a new page. You don’t scroll to the next screen on the Kindle; the scoll wheel is only used to access the menu and other features. You have to take the time to hit a button and wait as the screen momentarily flashes dark, and then rekindles (ha) with the next segment of text. That brief second gives you a chance to process the page you just read, to look out the window for a moment, to readjust the device in your hands. Looking back at the past week, I’m not sure now that I’d want it any other way.
Bezos writes almost exclusively about the Kindle, the e-reader created and sold by Amazon that seems to be constantly going out-of-stock. While the whole letter is interesting and informative, I found that one paragraph in particular clarified something about the Kindle that I hadn’t though about before: the Kindle not as the harbinger of informational ADD, but as the savior of long-form reading as we know it. I especially like the term “information snacking,” and you’ll probably see me use it more and more here on the blog.
