I read, you read, we all wanna iRead!

I was shocked by the reading statistics in this article from TidBITS describing the reading habits of the average American.

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9487

But it completely corresponds to my habits. Although since coming to Peace Corps I have picked up more books than throughout my collective life previous to Peace Corps combined, since I have had regular access to the internet, the amount of reading that I do daily has skyrocketed to even higher levels. I don't know by exactly how much but it is noticeable. I read online news and blogs daily (sometimes for hours).

It would be interesting to see Apple get on board with what seems to be trends in increased readership in electronic format.

One caveat... one of the big concerns is that people wouldn't enjoy the reading experience because they enjoy flipping (and maybe smelling, or is that a personal thing) the pages of a brand new or 20 year-old book. This seems like a legitimate argument. The two experiences do seem inherently different to me. I find myself much more ADD when online, skipping around, selectively reading what interests me and feeling no obligation to finish something that I started. Interestingly, I find that most often, the items I end up not finishing are 6-7 web page articles on sites like the ever-erudite Atlantic Monthly.

Could it be that our minds have adapted to two different modes of information intake? One of rapid-fire information scanning intake focused on obtaining large quantities of information at superficial levels (that is not to suggest this mode is not important but when was the last time you thought about the artistic nuances of a blog or pondered the significance of storyline development in a newspaper article?). And yet another mode that is much more patient, deliberate and involved. This may be personal but I would bet that I am not alone in this even if I am a minority. Still I wonder the reason for these modes. Does the act of sitting in front of a computer and not sprawled out on my bed or sofa (wait, whats a sofa again?) make the idea of settling in for a long read unappealing? Perhaps one of the keys to online readership is that at any moment I can get up and do something else and feel no obligation to go back and follow up on what I was reading. Would a device that could be held in your hand while reclining in you favorite pleather lazy-boy or airplane seat (or wait those don't really recline) encourage greater readership?

Right now my gut says yes, but I believe the interface needs to improve. I haven't used or even touched an Amazon Kindle but my guess is that Apple could easily improve on it. And what subliminal message could encourage reading more than a device named iRead?