With Amazon\u2019s new Kindle set to debut next week, the web is abuzz with rumors about Kindle 2.0. Will it have web browsing? Will there be networking features with other Kindles? Will it at least be a little less clunky? <\/p>\n
When the original Kindle debuted in fall 2007, Jesse wrote an insightful post <\/a>arguing that despite the tempting comparison to iPods, the Kindle is really a digital immigrant\u2019s device. It\u2019s designed to mimic the tactile and visual sensation of reading a book, and it has none of the slick elegance of an iPhone. Far short of paradigm-shifting, it looked back instead of forwards. These characteristics opened up the Kindle to criticism, but it hasn\u2019t kept the device from gaining a loyal following. Virginia Heffernan, writing for the NY Time\u2019s The Medium, has a paean of sorts to the very \u201cold-fashionedness\u201d of a Kindle<\/a>: <\/p>\n Unlike the other devices that clatter in my shoulder bag, the Kindle isn\u2019t a big greedy magnet for the world\u2019s signals. It doesn\u2019t pulse with clocks, blaze with video or squall with incoming bulletins and demands. It\u2019s almost dead, actually. Lifeless. Just a lump in my hands or my bag, exiled from the crisscrossing of infinite cybernetworks. It\u2019s almost like a book.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s true, the Internet can be demanding. New email, unread counts, missed calls, text message \u2013 they gush at you in a constant stream. It\u2019s comforting, sometimes, to hold in your hands something finite and discrete, something that doesn\u2019t ask you to respond right away. Virginia Heffernan again: <\/p>\n A sustained encounter with just about any good book on the Kindle is a rich, enormous, demanding, cerebral event. It\u2019s like reading used to be \u2014 long ago before anyone had ever seen the brightly backlighted screens of laptops, cellphones and iPods that, when activated, turn everyone\u2019s personal field of vision into layers of garish light and sound, personal Times Squares. The Kindle screen \u2014 nonbacklighted \u201celectronic paper\u201d that requires little energy \u2014 looks dusty, like newsprint.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These extolments of Kindle\u2019s paperness reminded of Jack Cheng\u2019s \u201cIn Praise of Lo-Fi<\/a>,\u201d in which he asks what happens to deep contemplation in a world blanketed in wi-fi and wireless power \u2013 a world where connectivity can\u2019t be turned off. He turns to the opposite: lo-fi. <\/p>\n Lo-fi time, I call it. And it\u2019s about blocking off time for sitting still and letting your mind wander. Or going for walks without necessarily trying to get anywhere. I very rarely take my Macbook to cafes anymore and sometimes I conveniently \u201cforget\u201d my phone at home. Even though most of my own work ends up living digitally, there are plenty of things to do that don\u2019t require a computer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I often find myself in search of lo-fi these days. At first, I tried to battle technology with technology. Leechblock<\/a> or an user account with \u201cparental\u201d controls disabling Internet, but I found them too easily circumvented when surrounded by multiple web browsers and multiple computers. Even though many of my classes have online readings, I now print out and annotate them by hand, making sure to sit far away from any luminescent electronic screens. When writing a paper, I sometimes shut my laptop and take a walk outside to ruminate by myself. Those with better willpower can take less drastic measures, but I\u2019m too easily distracted. <\/p>\n When the new Kindle does debut, it\u2019ll have to mediate two opposing tensions. One of innovation, it has to compete with all-capable gadgets like the iPhone. On the other hand, it should still be a reading experience, not another portable computer. Will it combine the best or worst of both worlds? If I got a Kindle, I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll be lured by easy downloads and accumulate a backlog of books much like the way unlistened podcasts have taken over my iPod. Or perhaps, it\u2019ll have better wireless integration and finally get me to read the articles I\u2019ve saved via Instapaper<\/a>. Convenient or too convenient? What are your thoughts on an electronic reader?<\/p>\n -Sarah Zhang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With Amazon\u2019s new Kindle set to debut next week, the web is abuzz with rumors about Kindle 2.0. Will it have web browsing? Will there be networking features with other Kindles? Will it at least be a little less clunky? When the original Kindle debuted in fall 2007, Jesse wrote an insightful post arguing that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-overload"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/digitalnatives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}