Do you prefer to read your books or magazines electronically or to have a physically printed item?
Now this is a bit of a controversial question, as I obviously work in the print industry but the results were staggering and have helped me take a big sigh of relief when looking at the future of print. I was amazed at the number of responses I received and the strong feeling from everyone regarding their reading habits and to find that 75% of respondents still prefer to read their books in hard copy is music to my ears. I do, however, feel that over the next couple of years these statistics will change dramatically and is definitely a question to ask again next year.
Now the reason why I asked this question was because late last year my mobile phone company offered me a sparkly new smart phone on renewal of my contract (I love it) and being an avid reader my whole life I quickly found a great free Ebook app. I typically have two books on the go at any one time but if you’d asked me this question 12 months ago I would have emphatically said no, I will not give up my hard copy books for an electronic version. This changed, however, after downloading a couple of free open source books (I had made a promise to myself to read more of the classics) and I found myself reading predominantly Ebooks, so much so a couple of months ago I invested in a 7” tablet EReader. Now, whenever I have five minutes to myself I find myself reading, in the doctors surgery or waiting for appointments no more lugging books around for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love reading magazines and newspapers in hard copy, getting them through the door, the smell of the print (I know, I know, I am a print geek after all) and then flicking through the pages until I find an article I am interested in - there is no way a phone, PC or tablet is going to be able to replicate that, so as you can tell I am currently in the both category but this may change J
I thought you might like to read the best of the responses to the question.
Carlos Gutierrez
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/carlos-gutierrez/b/826/2b9
Personally I prefer to have them physically printed but I do believe that the electronic world is catching on very fast in the sense that devices such as the kindle and a number of ebook readers have come onto the market. This makes storage of books etc a lot easier that carrying around bulky books, another thing that these manufacturers have realised especially with the kindle is that the screen doesn't resemble that of a computer making a more viable alternative to books as after sitting at a screen 8-10 hours a day the last thing I want to do is come back to a screen to read a book.
Kathryn Thomas-Daniels
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/kathryn-thomas-daniels/27/602/82a
I prefer a printed copy, also there is something about an old book, it may be the mystery or the romance? but it tells a tale, the smell, the turned corners, the coffee stains on the back cover! to pass a book on is a good gift to share.
Lee Clouse
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lclouse
I love the Kindle for reading books--I actually think I read faster on it. Magazines look great on an iPad. Newspapers, for no reason whatsoever, I like the print version. Seems arbitrary, I know. It's very interesting to see that most every answer here prefers print. That is definitely contrary to what we are being led to believe
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