Re: "The Elusive E-book"

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Bill Janssen <[email protected]> wrote:


> And books are going away, as far as popularity goes.


Are they really?

Everybody says that, but I wonder if it's really true.

Eric Flint has a different point of view, which is worth considering:

From http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/The_Pig-in-a-Poke_Factor

> Before I go any further, I need to dispel one myth, so it doesn't get in
> the way. That's the widely spread and often-spouted myth that readership is
> declining in America because of the impact of modern electronic
> entertainment. To quote from the AO-Ipsos study, "Analysts attribute the
> listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media."
>
> Well, the analysts are wrong, and the reasons they're wrong—as is so often
> true with social analyses of all kinds—is that they lack any historical
> perspective. The truth is that the American population has never—not once,
> not in three hundred years—been a population that, on average, reads very
> much. And when it does read, the preferred reading for most Americans has
> always been either religious texts—mostly the Bible—or self-help non-fiction
> literature.
>
> That was true in 1900, long before the internet came along. It was true in
> 1800, before there any workable electricity. It was true in 1700, before
> anyone even knew what electricity was.
>
> In short, it's "caused" by the way American culture developed
> historically, that's all. Different nations have different reading habits,
> shaped by their own history. Russians, for instance, have always read a lot
> more than Americans.
>
-- 
Chris Meadows aka | WWW: http://www.terrania.us | Somebody help,
Robotech_Master | ICQ: 5477383 AIM: RoboMastr | I'm trapped in
[email protected] | Skype, Gizmo: Robotech_Master | a sig file!
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