Andy Rooney does not like eBooks.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

However, those of us who are willing to still grow & learn & change will enjoy what life has to offer a whole lot more than stubborn old farts like him.

Are you so sure about that?

Take, say, ebook readers. It's a good assumption that all of us in this discussion like ebooks, or we wouldn't be here in the first place. I'm certainly one of them. You'll have to pry my PRS-505 out of my cold dead hands. Quite literally, actually -- when I was in the hospital, the one thing I wanted from home was my Sony Reader.

But do I enjoy my books more than someone who's also fond of books but who doesn't read them electronically? I don't think so. I don't find myself enjoying a book on the Reader more than I do the same book, or an equivalent, on dead trees. Nor did I find books less enjoyable a couple of years ago, before I bought it. I've always enjoyed, and been obsessed with, books. I remember as a very young child wanting to take my books on a family camping trip because I couldn't bear to be without them. (thankfully for the books, my mother put her foot down) I still buy printed books, and I still enjoy them, even as I buy (and collect from PG) electronic books, and in some cases replace pbooks with ebooks for matters of sheer space (space matters; I have a lot of books).

There are tactile pleasures to using an ebook reader. For me, it's the feel of sliding it out of its stretch cover ... I make sort of a ritual of it, like I always have with pbooks. Then there's opening the case, and switching it on, and the feel of the buttons under my fingers. One of the reasons I bought a leather case for it is the smell, too. Yes, I'm one of those people: I'm more interested in the texture of my clothes than their color, too. Think of it as a meal: some people just want to load in the food and refuel with the proper quantity of calories, vitamins, and so on, while others want to enjoy all the sensations of eating: the interplay of textures, the subtle flavors, etc.

But there are also pleasures in reading pbooks -- the weight of the book, the feel of the pages, and so on. There's the smell of ink in new books (have you ever noticed how different soy ink smells?) and ... well, time ... in old ones. There's a reason I didn't leave the AAUW book sale last week until they were ready to lock the doors, and a reason I have literally thousands of books within ten feet of where I'm sitting. I really, really like books, and not just for their content. There are some I have bought even after I already had them as ebooks because I wanted those particular books in tangible form.

So for me, I come down somewhere on the border. I obviously love ebooks or I wouldn't be here, and wouldn't be inseparable from my ebook reader. But I love pbooks as well, and wouldn't want to give all of them up either. I enjoy them both for different reasons. And I'm not going to condemn someone who puts a different weight on those factors, any more than I'd condemn someone because they like hot peppers more than I do but garlic not as much.

I'm a bit of an oddball, technologically. I pick and choose the things I like the best, and I'm not constrained by anyone else's opinions of what I "should" want due to the date of its invention. For instance, sitting in front of me are a laser pointer and a fountain pen. A green laser pointer, I might mention, and it would be blue if I could afford it. I remember when lasers lived only in SF stories, so I get a kick out of the fact I use one to play with my cat and annoy the local mockingbirds (they'll chase that dot all over the place, just like the cat). It's a laser; what's not to like? And I happen to like writing with a fountain pen. It feels good. I also have, just that I can see without moving, various gel pens, markers, one of those Sharpie ultra-fine writing pens, a mechanical pencil, and one of those complicated Pilot liquid-ink things that promises, this time, not to leak in my pocket. But I like my fountain pen the most, even though its technology long predates any of those. I don't like it because the tech is old (the pen itself is quite new; it's a Waterman "Phileas") ... I like it because it feels good in my hand and writes the way I like.

Just because something is new, like, say, that Pilot pen, doesn't mean it's necessarily more enjoyable to use, and just because something's old, like my fountain pen, doesn't mean it's not pleasant for its user. I also find the history of ancient Rome more interesting than what was on TV last week. Rushing to adopt the newest of everything makes no more sense, and perhaps not even as much, as rejecting it in favor of the tried and true. We didn't suffer for millennia until the invention of today's pens, and if something better turns up tomorrow, that doesn't make all the fun we had writing today disappear.

In short, if someone enjoys what they have, why should they adopt something different -- or change so they can enjoy something different -- when they're already happy? Would I be happier if I stopped enjoying my pbooks, and restricted myself solely to ebooks? I make that experiment every time I'm away from home for more than a few hours, and the answer is that I would not. I'm quite happy with what life has to offer. Some of it is new and modern and high-tech -- writing this post, for instance, or playing an online game with thousands of people across the world, or, yes, reading a book on my PRS-505. Some of it is decidedly old -- writing a letter to my aunt with a fountain pen, planting another variety of tomato in my garden, or reading one of the pbooks I bought at the book sale last week. But the mixture is my choice, and if my preferences are not the same as yours, it absolutely does not mean that I'm not enjoying life every bit as much.

And as for Andy Rooney ... well, I express my opinion in MobileRead posts for free. He expresses his on 60 Minutes for a whole lot of money. So he may be on to something there.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

That goes without saying. However, those of us who are willing to still grow & learn & change will enjoy what life has to offer a whole lot more than stubborn old farts like him.

Really? Then why is Rooney the one with TV airtime?

[queentess]

Originally Posted by bevdeforges

Andy Rooney is funny because he plays up his curmudgeon role for effect, but he does represent plenty of older people who do fear change - and sometimes for very good reason.

1. That's not funny (but apparently is to older people)
2. What "good reason" do plenty of older people have to fear change?

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Are you so sure about that? [and other "why should they have to change if they're happy commentary]

Yes. Because you don't know whether or not you'll like something until you try it. And because life is about experiencing things, and limiting yourself to the past because "that's what I've always done" is ridiculous.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by queentess

2. What "good reason" do plenty of older people have to fear change?

The same reasons plenty of not-so-old people have to fear change: The sudden loss or inability to do things they've been able to do for years; fear of not understanding... and of being embarrassed in public or private for not understanding; fear of needing help when you did not before.

[jbcohen]

I guess Andy rooney is technophobic. Personaly I feel that our society is far to primitive to solve its own problems and far to primitive to get serious work done. Thus my home is filled with 21st century technology and is the most advanced technologically on the block. I installed a Logitech Review at home and now I am streaming the entire internet to my big screen HD TV and let me tell you its quite amazing. I am looking to implement Internet Radio, freeing my family and I from the necesity of listening to only local stations and instead getting radio stations from all over the world. My smart phone is technologically one of the most advanced on the planet and I am constantly trading the infromation super highway looking for more advanced technologies to implement at home. Andy Rooney is anpther example of Cave Man thinking that needs to be vacated out of the human mind.

[Worldwalker]

Far too primitive to get serious work done ... so what, exactly, is "serious" work if it isn't anything we've done to date, all the way back to building pyramids? How will you know it when you see it? And did all those people know they were just being frivolous?

Originally Posted by queentess

Yes. Because you don't know whether or not you'll like something until you try it. And because life is about experiencing things, and limiting yourself to the past because "that's what I've always done" is ridiculous.

There is, however, a limit to the number of things one has time to try. And people have different interests in what they want to try. For instance, since I seem to be talking about food today, I have a friend who as far as I can tell won't eat anything his mother didn't serve while he was a child, except for take-out pizza. It's not that he doesn't like food; far from it, he loves food (he probably loves food a little too much). But he loves certain food, and no matter how much his friends bug him to step outside his comfort zone and try different food, he doesn't want to. He likes the food he already knows. I should mention, by the way, he's no Andy Rooney. He's notable as the first person I know to own their own home fileserver, to wire their house for networking, and to have (when added up) a terabyte of storage. He was building computers when most people didn't even have Commodore 64's. He's far from neophobic ... except about food. He likes familiar foods, to the point of not wanting to even try, say, kung pao chicken. He enjoys the foods he already knows and likes. On the other hand, there are foodies who live for new and different foods. They don't seem to want to eat anything twice; they'd rather try something new. They'd rather eat something they've never tried before, even if it's downright weird, than eat something they already know. They, too, enjoy their food (though for some reason they seem to be much skinnier than my friend). Both groups of people look forward to their meals. Both groups enjoy what they eat. One gets enjoyment from familiarity, one from unfamiliarity. Who is anyone else to say, really, that the people who enjoy familiar foods should stop enjoying them, and eat like the people who enjoy novel foods instead? Or the other way around, for that matter -- that everyone should eat only what Mama used to make, and skip that weird stuff entirely? That's crazy; they should eat what makes them happy. If trying new foods doesn't make them happy, they'll be less happy, not more, for those "experiences".

The big question is, really, what makes you happy? Take my mother: she doesn't have a cell phone. I have one. Am I happier than she is because of my phone? She doesn't think she has a need for a cell phone, so she's not unhappy not having one. She is, in fact, quite happy; what type of telephone she owns doesn't come into it. She has everything she wants. Why shouldn't she be happy, then? Because someone else has something she doesn't? Because someone else thinks they need something she doesn't? Because I decided to get a cell phone and she decided not to?

Life is about a lot of things. Trying new things is only one part of it. Finding things you like and enjoying those things is another part. Different people enjoy different things, and if they do things that make other people happy, rather than the things they enjoy, they will not, in fact, be happier.

[carpetmojo]

Sorry to expose my ignorance, but who is Andy Rooney ?

We have an unfortunate footballer with the same surname - by the furore being raised here, perhaps they're related ?

[Anthem]

Hmm. Meh. Hmm.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Sorry to expose my ignorance, but who is Andy Rooney ?

We have an unfortunate footballer with the same surname - by the furore being raised here, perhaps they're related ?

He's a professional curmudgeon. He does a 5-minute segment at the end of a popular US news program in which he gets grumpy about some aspect of life. He's actually quite funny, right up until your personal ox gets gored. He gets paid (presumably quite well) for this, which makes me wonder what I'm doing so badly wrong.

[pietrocrazy]

My grandmother had a stroke and lost sight in her left eye - her right eye had already been losing sight for years. She became extraordinarily depressed after that because she lost the ability to take care of herself, and she lost the ability to do the one thing she really loved, which was reading. Then my aunts and my mom pitched in together to buy her a Kindle DX. So now with the ability to adjust the font size, she is able to read again. Not only is she happier, but her health improved, since she felt happier she has been eating better and exercising more (exercising for her is just walking back and forth very slowly down the hallway with a walker and my aunt by her side, since she's wheelchair bound most of the time).

So I guess my point is that I understand why people fear change, but in fact new technologies can bring us a lot of good. I don't even think it's wrong to fear change, but let's be reasonable about it.

[jbcohen]

Perhapse you care to explain the fear of technology peitocrazy. Personally I hate the technological abilities of our society, I see us as little more than knuckle dragining cave men/women.

[WT Sharpe]

Does anything new ever satisfy Andy Rooney? Not really.

Is Andy Rooney an old curmudgeon who complains about everything new to appear in the last 50 years? Is he a cantankerous old man who displays hostility to all new styles and trends for no other reason than that they represent change from the established ways of doing things with which he is familiar? Absolutely.

I think that's why I like the old fart. He's fun to watch. And quite funny at times.

I don't take his rant against ebooks too seriously, and I doubt he does either.

[Hoyt Clagwell]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Does anything new ever satisfy Andy Rooney? Not really.

Is Andy Rooney an old curmudgeon who complains about everything new to appear in the last 50 years? Is he a cantankerous old man who displays hostility to all new styles and trends for no other reason than that they represent change from the established ways of doing things with which he is familiar? Absolutely.

I think that's why I like the old fart. He's fun to watch. And quite funny at times.

I don't take his rant against ebooks too seriously, and I doubt he does either.

I remember the rant he did when books replaced scrolls. He was pretty pissed off.

[cfrizz]

Life is built on change, nothing stays the same, not even people. Some things I thought were set in stone as a kid I now realize that I simply didn't know any better. But time and maturity have taught me otherwise.

I worked for years with people who proclaimed and bitched about how they hate change, all the while, the job kept changing. Some of them got let go years ago from refusing to change and adapt.

Time & progress wait for no one. Either adapt & change, or get the hell out of the way.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Hoyt Clagwell

I remember the rant he did when books replaced scrolls. He was pretty pissed off.

Karma worthy! Coming your way!