This Christmas I was surprised and delighted to get a Kindle as one of my gifts. Back in 2011, I remember talking to a friend of mine and dismissing the Kindle as something which ruined the experiences of reading, but in the five years since then I’ve had quite a change of opinion. Not only am I not anti-Kindle now, but I am very pro-Kindle. I love mine and I look forward to reading many books on it – not that I am now not interested in owning books physically.
I have a very small bedroom and not enough room to contain my possessions. As a result, my room is very messy because there are books and all other things all over the floor and taking up all the space on the shelves and desks I have. Five years ago I didn’t have quite as much stuff but now I do and it’s a real issue. These days getting something digitally is quite nice, because I know I’m not going to have to deal with the issue of storing it and as I have started to buy more and more things digitally, I’ve started to realise that I’m not missing out on that much by doing so.
When somebody writes a book, you want to read what they have to say and if the writer’s any good, you’ll enjoy their work no matter how you consume it. When a video game is released, you just want to play it: why does it matter if it’s installed into your system or read from a disk? These are the kinds of conclusions I find myself coming to these days. But having said that, I can still understand the pleasure of getting an especially nice edition of a book or wanting to own your favourite game physically. I’m just a lot more accepting of digital purchases these days and I think my initial skepticism was just an irrational fear of something new.
(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)
