[Worldwalker]

When I read a book, I want to curl up and lose myself in the book. I don't want to carry on some sort of ersatz communication with 10,000 random strangers. Nor do I want to be influenced by what 10,000 weenies think is the "important" part of the book -- I'm smart enough to figure that out for myself. I don't want to watch embedded video, I don't want to be distracted by surfing off to read further information, I don't want audio commentary on it, I don't want author interviews. I don't want any of that. I just want to Read. My. Book.

My Sony PRS-505 does that very well. It puts text on the screen. In fact, that's true of just about every other reader out there. The way the text is put on the screen can be improved, and so can the amount of screen available to put text on, but that's a matter of making a better ebook reader, not a device to facilitate access to some lame parody of a social networking website with some book as its supposed theme.

Has this generation gotten so far away from the core concept of reading (or, for that matter, of doing anything as an individual instead part of a swarm?) that they can't even just sit down and read a book?