I believe that before the end of this century we will see the end of printed books.

A critical concept not discussed by Pogue is our shrinking attention spans and growing time management challenges.

I doubt attention deficit will still be considered a disorder ten years from now. We are living increasingly faster-paced lives in an increasingly faster-paced world. The pervasiveness of the Internet and the rapid proliferation of powerful mobile technology is making our world a smaller and smaller place and our lives a more and more crowded space.

We have become so accustomed to multi-tasking that the very concept of focusing our attention on only one thing at a time somehow seems inherently wrong to us. All the world’s a stage within this short attention span theater. And all of us are not merely players, we have been cast in several simultaneous roles. Time management has always been important, but nowadays it is even more essential.

Barring some major scientific breakthrough (or some major breakdown in the space-time continuum), there will still only be 24 hours in a day. Neither the world nor people in it are likely to slow down. Our attention spans will have to remain short. Our time management skills will have to remain vigilant.

There is an opportunity cost (measured mostly in time, not in purchase price) in reading books that is simply too high. This, I believe, is a leading reason that more and more people, who actually do make the time for reading, are reading blogs or e-books – and not printed books.

Another time management example, which has existed long before the rise of blogs and e-books, are services that provide sound-bites and bullet points summaries, like Cliff Notes for busy business people, that many executives use to “read” a dozen of the year’s best business books all at once – and often to optimize otherwise wasted time such as commuting and business travel.

Similarly, it is no surprise that some of the most popular business blogs are aggregations or syndications of dozens of individual blogs into a single digital newsstand of sorts. The best of which provide a service similar to the people who run the sidewalk newsstands in busy cities like New York – the guy who with a few seconds of rapid fire conversation, directs you to the magazine or newspaper you are looking for – or even better, remembers what you like and keeps a copy for you behind the counter and allows you to quickly pick it up, pay for it, and be on your way practically without breaking your stride.

And, of course, the leading factor of the “Video Killed the Radio Star” effect that will be the death of printed books by the end of this century, is that digital documents of all kinds (not just e-books) are easier to search than flipping through the pages of a printed document to try to find that obscure quote or nugget of wisdom potentially buried within hundreds of pages.

The future of all human communication will be short digital bursts of multimedia experiences that seamlessly blend an economy of words with audio and video components.

And eventually, I believe even digitally written words will themselves disappear. All human communication will be interactive audio and video and “literacy” will be meaningless.

But, not to worry, that won’t happen until the next century.

Something I rarely say, but: I think Jim is wrong – and neither of us will be around in the next century to see who’s right

I DO have an e-reader – it’s gathering dust on the desk in front of me. Why? Well, apart from the pleasure of browsing through books physically to choose one to read (weren’t we discussing the death of book shops a few years ago?), the e-reader technology actually puts a barrier between me and what I’m trying to read. I have to download a text (which has to be in a format my e-reader can understand – unlike the universal format of print), turn on my e-reader (wait), plug it in to my PC (wait), download the text (wait), load the chapter (wait) … and in the meantime I’m half way through chapter 1 on the physical book I’ve been multi-tasking with in my left hand, whilst waiting. I can find text in my e-books (if I’m willing to wait … and wait …), but making highlights and annotations are a hassle and I can’t see that significantly improving.

I can only load a downloaded book onto a limited number of devices (so it won’t last centuries like my paper books). The e-reader is a good deal easer to damage (and far more expensive to mend) than my paper books.

Naturally, the technology will improve, but there will always be those of us who choose a more relaxed way of living. I read a (foreign) newspaper online now, but only because I can get it on the day of publication (unlike the printed version) – I get nothing like the enjoyment that I had when leafing through the paper version, and I could do that whilst completing other tasks – the multi-tasking Jim refers to.

Improved technology doesn’t alway speed things up. I’m back using a paper-based diary, because I can see in a second if I’m free to make an appointment and don’t need to keep anybody waiting while I power up my mobile ‘phone, enter a password, locate and run a program, then work my way through tortuous menus to find out what’s what.

As for multi-tasking and time management issues – well, I find myself these days doing much more in much less time, which gives me more time for my books. I can’t be the only one, surely!

And I leave you with the thought that CDs and then DVDs were going to kill LPs (vinyl records). They didn’t, and I can’t imagine why, but while there are people around who prefer one form over the other, the medium won’t die. And if I’m wrong, Jim’s progeny may come and laugh over my grave

I really hope that we don’t see the end of books. I like holding one in my hand and would hate to have to look at screens more than I already do.

A point that I didn’t make despite two previous and verbose comments is that for me the real question isn’t “what is the future of reading” but instead:

Will people still read in the future?

So far it appears that everyone (myself included) who has commented is someone who likes to read.

However, if you are not someone, to paraphrase Brian, who sees an adventure awaiting you in a 500 page novel, then you don’t care if it is a printed book or a e-book – you aren’t going to read it.

So, yes, between us readers, some of us will not exchange our personal tactile relationship with printed books for an e-reader made of the finest plastic, glass, or metal, and equipped with all the bells and whistles of the latest technology.

But much more importantly, e-readers aren’t going to make non-readers want to read.

I am arguing that there is a declining interest in reading in general throughout society. And I see this interest declining rapidly across current generation gaps, and dropping even more dramatically in the coming decades.

The cultural shift that is difficult to guage is the extent to which the disappearance of the singular book represents a major step towards a post-biblical society. When more and more of us read screens rather than pages, we are saying goodbye to the singular book which, however tawdry, had one thing in common with the Bible – the original printed book – two covers. Between the two covers writers tried to offer a facsimile of completeness. No two covers, no completeness.
Are the e-readers which will contain many books just a technological manifestation of the post-modernist declaration that meta-narratives are over and done with?

These kinds of questions led me to a producing am hour long discussion about the future of reading. Here is a link http://bit.ly/8Qqv3O

[New Post] The Future of Reading – via @twitoaster http://philsimonsystems.com/blog/wri...