Tablets Rekindle Our Love of Reading -- Books, Too

Tablets, e-book readers, and digital books are making us want to read again. Plus, they're also inspiring us to read paper books too and are eating into TV time. Good news!

We know 2011 is the year of the tablet PC--they're due in droves, from Apple and every other maker under the sun. Amazon's also recently revealed the successes of its Kindle platform--and noted that for the first time e-book sales outstripped physical book sales last quarter. With Apple and News Corp. due to release the first semi-traditional newspaper for the iPad, The Daily, this week (stay tuned to this space for coverage), we can see that digital books and magazines are the future of reading. Good timing then for iModerate Research Technologies and Brock Associates to investigate how people read their digital books on portable electronic devices (or "multifunction devices," MFDs as the survey prefers to call them). The study involved some in-depth questioning of over 300 MFD owners who'd read a book on their device inside the last six months.

Sixty-six percent of MFD owners say owning one has actually increased their reading habit--great news for publishers who'd maybe worried the new digital era, combined with Net reading addiction would eat into their future. Furthermore, 46% of MFD owners said they'd actually been inspired to read more paper books. Wait ... what? Yup, despite the fact that the survey showed MFD users had great "affinity" for their devices, "struggling to come up with significant shortcomings to reading ebooks on them" they were also inspired to read more old-school books. Perhaps they were reminded of the pleasures of reading, and were reluctant to haul their Kindle into the bath with them for a book-accompanied relaxing soak?