Sunday, September 12, 2010

Rediscovering reading

I find myself learning to enjoy reading again, thanks to my Kindle ereader. On the advice of a dear friend, I paid serious attention to why it is better to get a dedicated ereader than an all-purpose iPad. After writing the last blog (re: How the internet makes us stupid), I realized that my friend was right about the ereader being better for reading. Here's why.

I think perhaps the reason why the ereader works better is that it is free of distractions. All the colourful pictures, hyperlinks, advertisements in pop-up windows, instant messaging, etc, are huge distractions to serious reading. To be honest, I do miss the ability to quickly and easily jump from website to website. However, I find that I actually enjoy reading better, and I can focus on reading continuously without getting bored. It seems that my ereader has rekindled the reader in me!

On the practical side, I find that my eyes don't tire so easily when I read on the ereader, as compared to reading on my laptop. With the ereader, I could read for hours, while on my laptop I could feel eye strain in minutes (although longer on my desktop, which has a better screen). As a portable reading device, the ereader beats the iPad hands-down.

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