Why Reading Deserves its Own Device
A month ago I bought a Kindle, and after a week of use I brought it back with me to Oxford, leaving my iPad in New York. It was a great decision. For the longest time I had dismissed the Kindle as silly, calling it a ’segue technology’ – a device that would just be around until the iPad or some other multi-function tablet squashed it. Who needs another media consumption device? I was totally wrong.
What I had forgotten – living in the tech world and spending every free moment on email, Twitter, and blogs – was that reading a book is a very special and unique experience. It’s immersive, demanding complete attention, and involves opening your mind and letting yourself be transported to a different place, or a different way of thinking. This requires a device that disappears entirely as you start to use it: it has to be light enough that you forget you’re holding it, be large enough that you can immerse yourself in a page without it being unwieldy, and be easily readable in your favorite spaces – under a tree, on a beach, or in front of a fireplace.
It also has to be free of distractions. The iPhone is great for short-form communication, skimming tweets, checking Facebook, listening to music, and watching online video on the go, among other things. These functions all happen to co-exist very nicely in one device: you’ll read a tweet with a link takes you to a web page with an interesting video that you then want to email to a friend or broadcast.
But reading a good book – and really absorbing the knowledge or story – is a totally different experience. If you find the right book and environment, it’s truly magical. It deserves a device focused solely on making that experience incredible.
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Juventas Fugit is designed and written by Justin Wohlstadter, who, when not writing in the third person, can be found in a coffee shop talking about startups, thinking about the future of education, and generally procrastinating something important.
- Passions: startups that positively affect the world, education innovation, good design, learning, and meeting those with an equally insatiable curiosity.
- Play: director of product design at Enterproid and partner at BOLDstart Ventures.
- Previously: built the early-stage venture arm of Penny Black. And many other crazy, less successful ventures involving fire extinguishers, measuring philanthropic impact, and creative spaces.
- Pedantry: most of the important stuff I taught myself or learned from friends, but I’m fortunate to have (barely received) degrees from Harvard and Oxford. At Oxford I wrote my dissertation on how internet innovation will disrupt access to higher education.
- Procrastination: can be found on Twitter, Linkedin, AngelList and other web spaces, and be reached via email at my first name at this domain.
