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The e-readers market continues to grow, and just like digital downloads eclipsed CD sales, it stands to reason that ebooks will eclipse the sale of physical books. Depending on your stance, this is a good thing. Or a very bad thing.

Reason 1: Ultra portability

Think about this – the average e-reader is exceptionally thin, and slips into any backpack, or briefcase. Now on this one thin slab of technology, you can store thousands of books, as opposed to lugging thousands of books. Sure, libraries look great, but functionality and portability help, too.

Reason 2: Instant access

The Amazon Kindle, with its Whispernet technology and its free access to the first chapter of most every book on its platform proved that people like convenience. Sitting at a conference, have you heard someone talk about a book that may interest you? Fire up your 3G-connected ebook reader, download the first chapter for free, and see if it’s worth getting the rest of the book. Within 30 seconds, you could have a new title in front of you, which is far more convenient than making a note to go past your book store later and purchase it.

Reason 3: Cheaper in the long run

If you’re prone to purchasing potential best-sellers the day they are released, then you’re likely to save money by purchasing their digital equivalent if it is released day-and-date. On average, new releases of ebooks cost less than new releases of their paper equivalents, which could lead to a significant cost saving in the long run.

Reason 4: Non destructive annotations and highlighting

Some people highlight and annotate in their physical books with reckless abandon. Others are mortified by the idea of merely scuffing the book. eBook readers cater to both these groups of people by allowing you to highlight important content, while also being able to remove the highlights at a later stage, in a non-destructive manner. A sharpie lover’s dream.

If you think long and hard about it, ebook readers have many advantages over physical books. This is not to say that they will completely eclipse and replace books, but it is to say to dismiss an ebook and the digital platform completely is irresponsible, and likely not in your best interest.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

A recent Nielsen Norman Group study has found that using e-readers results in reduced reading speed, while the absolute volume of content you read increases.

Micro-study

The micro-study, which had a small sample group of 24 self-professed avid readers read a bunch of books spanning multiple reading platforms. The study found that those who read e-readers can read as much as 11 per cent more slowly than when they read from the good old ink-on-paper format.

More specifically, using paper books as the reference point, it was found that those reading on an iPad read 6.25 per cent slower and those reading from the Amazon Kindle e-readers read, on average, 11 per cent slower. This could be down to time lost waiting for the page to refresh once you’ve turned them, or, less complicated, the nuances of reading on a digital platform versus a static paper one.

Bitesized consumption

What the study does not account for is how e-readers have changed how people read and how much they read. With a breast pocket-sized device that can store your entire library, it’s far more likely you’ll do reading in between commutes or during special ‘breaks’, and so on. This results in significantly more reading done in the long run. And there is no measure of the difference textbooks in eBook readers will do for the back health of a span of college students no longer carrying heavy satchels in the decades to come. If you’ve been there, you know what we mean.

The benefit of this finding

Photo: Amazon

Though this is obviously a bad thing for the speed readers among us, this could have great bearing for academic reading. That is, assuming reading the same material slower – on one device than a regular book – results in you taking in and retaining information better than by even a smidgen. If that is the case, eBook readers may be a worthwhile investment.

Being marketed to go

Dedicated eBooks readers are also becoming increasingly more affordable. Whether it is iPad response time, or just market pressure, we’ve seen Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Sony Daily Edition drop in price over the last few weeks. It’s the slow crawl towards what some have called the ‘paperback ebook readers’, devices that have zero added features but are priced to go, so as to get as many people as possible using them.

Not that we think you would bother to do statistical research, but have you found you read slower on your e-reader than you do a regular old book? And do you read more now that you do have an eBooks reader? Let us know in the comments below.