{"id":16834,"date":"2015-08-31T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=16834"},"modified":"2015-08-31T08:00:34","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T12:00:34","slug":"score-another-one-for-physical-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=16834","title":{"rendered":"Score Another One for Physical Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another article came out last week extolling the benefits of reading books, actual books with real pages. This comes as no surprise to me. MIC.COM ran the article<\/a>\u00a0summing up the studies that have been conducted. The benefits of reading not on a device can be easily summed up: readers remember more, can concentrate better, and are more empathetic than readers who use an e-reader. That people are still studying this surprises me. These gains seem obvious to me.\u00a0
\nThe pleasure of reading an actual book is largely found in the pages, the real paper pages. The pages that smell like books, and this makes people\u00a0surreptitiously sniff their books when no one is looking. The feeling of the paper between your fingers as you ready to turn the page is one that never gets old for me. Holding the paper is so much more satisfying than flicking your finger on a screen (at least that’s how I feel). I think the tactile aspect of reading a physical book helps with memory as there is more for your brain to hold on to.
\nConcentration is better with a book versus a device. I suspect part of this is because so many devices come with the internet and it’s so easy to leave your reading to go look something up and get sucked into the black hole of Google searches and checking social media to see what your friends had for lunch. 400 students were interviewed about their concentration level while reading, and 92-94% of them said “I concentrate best when I read print.” This statement makes the bookseller in me very happy. If we can keep people under 25 engaged with books then perhaps all bookstores are in stronger positions than we think. It’s easy to feel under attack from all the news that e-readers will be the death of books. But, if young people feel the value of reading physical books, then perhaps it will all be okay.
\nLastly, the empathy issue with books is enormous. People were studied reading an upsetting story as a book or on iPad, and the book readers showed greater empathy. Again, this feels very important to me for children. If reading a physical book increases empathy, why would anyone want their kids to read any other way?
\nThe\u00a0ancillary benefit to reading a real book is love. Yes, love. Why? Because it’s easier to strike up a conversation with a cute stranger if he\/she is reading a book that you loved and you can actually see the title. And who can’t fall for a stranger talking about a beloved book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The power of memory, concentration, and love are all the virtues of physical books. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}