Book vs Kindle

                In chapter six of The Shallows, Nicholas Carr compares reading a physical book to reading the text of a book either on a kindle or a nook. The chapter mainly talks about how the new e-readers are changing the way we read. The majority of the chapter tells about different accounts from different people on how they saw their reading change. They mostly told tales about how they would skip around and get distracted by the internet porthole that was available on the device.

                In my own experience, I have used the kindle app on my iPhone to read a book as well as using a physical book to read. I would have to say that my experience reading a physical book was much more enjoyable. I say this because I am biased towards normal books because I have grown up reading them and enjoy being able to turn a page and find out what is coming next.

                While I didn’t mind reading a book on my kindle app on my phone I did find it to be a bit distracting because whenever I would get a text message it would pop up on the top of my screen and I would get distracted from what I was reading. However, it did come with some benefits. Since I carry my phone with me wherever I go I just had to take it out to pick up where I left off in the book. I could read it on the bus without any trouble, in between classes, and best of all, in the dark. Since my phone is backlit I could use the light from that to read rather than having to turn on a lamp and possible wake my roommates. I find this to be the best quality of an e-reader because it allows you to do your own reading without having to wake or rouse others later in the evening.

                It does come with some disadvantages though. I found myself having to charge my phone more often than I had to before as well as finding my eyes hurting from the backlit screen. However, these disadvantages would not deter me from using the kindle app again. I do find that the application is useful and come with its own benefits. One specific advantage being not having to leave the comfort of your home to go out and buy a new book to read.

                I do find this to be somewhat of a disadvantage though because I personally like to browse through the bookstore and look at things that I may have no otherwise looked at.  I also think a book provides you with a more intimate understanding of what a book can convey through its pages rather than a screen. This is for the fact, like those mentioned in the book said, that you can write in the margins, highlight a specific line, and leave of in some random spot and are able to find it because you dog-eared the page.

- Jeanne Aggouras