> Buyers and sellers alike pointed to the same reason: growing up in the digital age has intensified the desire for analogue objects and tangible connections to the past. There is something special about holding history in your hands.
Books don't change. The online written word is subject to revision and change, as are ebooks. A physical volume which one owns and holds cannot be memory-holed.
I've even considered printing off essays from the internet I find insightful. I want to reread them, read them in bed, preserve them for the future. Archive.org does exist, but everything on the internet seems to be ephemeral.
I feel like most of these types of beliefs are in the realm of people's desires to differentiate themselves rather than anything intrinsic about how they do it.
There's studies on mammal populations, and as their preferred number of group sizes increases, the 'differentiable' traits also increased. So mammals that preferred to live in large groups had more visible differences in phenotypes than small groups.
If social systems are just an extension of phenotypes to some degree, then all that's really happening is people wanting to differentiate and they have a small differentiable desire in any given direction.
The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them.
On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection of what I’ve “emptied into my mind”, to quote Franklin.
I don’t have the same thing for the ebooks I’ve read, and it gives me a weird feeling of amnesia.
That's exactly how I feel although I do wonder if a lot of younger people, if any still become readers, will just a different, less physical relationship with their books than I do or you do.
It's probably a bad example but I don't have any physical connection with music or video anymore for instance, but I definitely remember having that kind of relationship with favorite records and tapes when I was a kid. And now I just... don't. It must be the same way for some people with e-books.
Not as satisfying as seeing your books, but I keep a running doc where I note the title, dates, a short synopsis, and a few sentences of thoughts for books I’ve read. It helps me keep track a little better.
My greatest moment of this was being able to find a quote in a 500-page book I had read 8 years earlier in about 2 minutes thanks to the physical memory of my first encounter with that text.
Even unread books form a physical reminder to read, and of the import of the topic they cover.
When I come across a book that covers something important well, I buy it. I will likely read it, but even if it just keeps reminding me of the topic, reinforcing my integrated web of understanding, it is doing good.
Im just contemplating that the cultural filter function that was the recognition of a work by the pulic is deactivated. Even a book that just drowns without any splash may reincarnate as an "idea" from the training material. Yes, the author is forgotten, but the idea lives on.
I didn't know I was part of a trend, that's pretty cool. I've been buying originals related to the Portuguese Estado Novo and Carnation Revolution for some years. A ton of ad-hoc, clearly political, publishers spawned right after the revolution and I've been thinking of digitizing some of the stuff I have for historical purposes.
Personally, I don’t see any advantage of a real book over an ebook (locally stored) in an e-ink reader. And there are disadvantages: ergonomics, space, cost, environment.
EDIT: books last longer (decades or centuries) than SSDs. But M-DISCs can allegedly last for millennia.
I wouldn't be surprised if it has a lot less to do with "seeking tangible connections to the past", and much more with the fact that there are a few book collecting Youtubers who's short form content is getting popular and shows how much people can theoretically earn with old books.
The signs sure seem to be indicating a Gen Z rollback to the analog and middle tech. Newspapers, books, cursive clubs, letter writing (pen pals), cassettes and albums, printed photographs, even carb/gas based auto hacking. These are just in my circle, but I have seen stories in the paper too. Anyone else seeing interesting trends from the youngers? I especially like to see the blending of new and old - like building a music server for VLPFM neighborhood station, hyper local phone co, text clubs on paper, etc.
Personally I would want to collect books which are now out of print, for the sake of preserving information. I don't understand the appeal of first editions or autographed copies.
I have a fair number of autographed books, but I work in publishing so a lot of them are signed by friends and people I've worked with. Which means there's no way I'd willingly part with them. I'm less interested in 'collecting' as such so much any more. And my cookbooks all show visible signs of use.
For what it's worth, in the U.S. at least you can connect to your local library with an app named "libby". I used this frequently on my Android phone to download books and magazines, and you can connect with the InterLibrary Loan system too. My use of the public library is much, much higher than before, when I had to travel to the physical library branch to check out books or read magazines.
Regarding the feeling of something missing by reading on electronic devices, expressed in a few comments:
Some (not all) answers I was able to find in Maryanne Wolf's book "Reader, Come Home". Main concept there is what she calls deep-reading, a complex back and forth between different brain areas and the hemispheres, that needs time and is replaced by specific forms of skimming on the mentioned devices. In particular, the shift between hemispheres allows for integration into the reader's personal store of knowledge and, more broadly, into their own worldview.
The "wasted" time is essential for memory building and consolidation. Add enforced linear reading without immediate availibility to break the flow by googling/notifications/jumping to whatever, also consider haptics and more. Similar effects can also be found in handwriting vs typing, manual sketching etc.
22 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 55.0 ms ] threadBooks don't change. The online written word is subject to revision and change, as are ebooks. A physical volume which one owns and holds cannot be memory-holed.
There's studies on mammal populations, and as their preferred number of group sizes increases, the 'differentiable' traits also increased. So mammals that preferred to live in large groups had more visible differences in phenotypes than small groups.
If social systems are just an extension of phenotypes to some degree, then all that's really happening is people wanting to differentiate and they have a small differentiable desire in any given direction.
but you be you.
On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection of what I’ve “emptied into my mind”, to quote Franklin.
I don’t have the same thing for the ebooks I’ve read, and it gives me a weird feeling of amnesia.
It's probably a bad example but I don't have any physical connection with music or video anymore for instance, but I definitely remember having that kind of relationship with favorite records and tapes when I was a kid. And now I just... don't. It must be the same way for some people with e-books.
- can't be read in dark mode
- can't change font or font size (or line/paragraph spacing)
- can't use search
- can't be in multiple places (multiple devices)... uh, easily
- etc
I think you just have embrace the positives of whichever you choose.
My phrase for this is "Books are bookmarks".
Even unread books form a physical reminder to read, and of the import of the topic they cover.
When I come across a book that covers something important well, I buy it. I will likely read it, but even if it just keeps reminding me of the topic, reinforcing my integrated web of understanding, it is doing good.
EDIT: books last longer (decades or centuries) than SSDs. But M-DISCs can allegedly last for millennia.
Some (not all) answers I was able to find in Maryanne Wolf's book "Reader, Come Home". Main concept there is what she calls deep-reading, a complex back and forth between different brain areas and the hemispheres, that needs time and is replaced by specific forms of skimming on the mentioned devices. In particular, the shift between hemispheres allows for integration into the reader's personal store of knowledge and, more broadly, into their own worldview.
The "wasted" time is essential for memory building and consolidation. Add enforced linear reading without immediate availibility to break the flow by googling/notifications/jumping to whatever, also consider haptics and more. Similar effects can also be found in handwriting vs typing, manual sketching etc.