Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?

Slowly picking through the far too many pictures taken during the France trip and that need cleaning up (pictures: oui, flash: non), a pack of work I have to do for the fencing club (deadlines looming for subsidy dossiers), and of course the gazillion posts my feeddemon had on offer upon my return.


Below my less concise response to Mark Newton's most recent post in which he comments on a NYTimes article "E-Books Make Readers Less Isolated". Let's start off with a song quote (title comes from the same song):

                                                     The thoughts of all the lonely people

                                                     Makes you cry

                                                     Cos you're lonely

                                                     You're lonely too inside

                                                                ~Poison Girls

The act of reading and the act of having a meaningful conversation cannot exist at the same spot in space and time, that's about the only thing I can agree with in that article. The rest is all wild tangents about how the e-reader will rehabilitate a supposedly ostracised group.

Having a shiny new e-thingummy people want to ask everything and more about might lead to some socialising, granted. But the point should be made that while you let others fondle your e-reader, you are very certainly *not* reading. I myself find the price of an e-reader still too high to use it as a conversational icebreaker. And having been a Lone Reader in public for years: people certainly do approach to ask about what you are reading, usually people who are Lone Readers themselves but currently out of books to read. Just as the *e*mproved Lone Reader will mostly be approached by people thinking about getting an e-reader (not to ask him out for dinner or engage in a thoughtful and meaningful discussion). Or am I to believe e-readers are enhanced with special pheromones to attract people?

Same goes for the Lone Reader who can now connect online from his corner table (as if he couldn't before through laptop or phone if so desired). The question is, can we still consider the Lone Reader a Reader if he's not reading but having a conversation (in the physical or the digital world)?

Aha, I have unearthed a dark and devilish plot! This is merely propaganda for a so-called miraculous piece of technology that will supposedly change the social habits of the Lone Reader. The Lone Reader, who with his strong attention span and ability to read, has not yet succumbed to the addictive lure of social networking. But now the internet will be slipped into his book, cunningly like a Trojan horse, and Lone Reader will stop reading and start chatting away, and then everybody will finally be equal: unable to read more than 500 characters at a time. Muhahaa!

Also the unknowns who are allowed to declare for or against how socially cool reading whilst commuting/travelling is are both completely beside the point. People do not get onto plains, trains, busses and undergrounds to socialise. They do so to get from point A to B, and most of them, especially when it's a regular commute, look for things to occupy their minds so as not to have to stare at each other like idiots for the duration of the trip (especially the same idiots every day).
So they read (newspapers, books, some stuff for work they forgot to read in the evening,...),  listen to music, do their nails, watch a movie, tap away on their iPhones at lightning speed and connect (with people probably sitting in another train), count cows, sleep...

I'm sure that if they ever invented an e-reader that would watch traffic for you while you read a book or browse the internet, to use on bicycles and cars, you'd really see the sales shoot up.