Are you keeping score?

[Kasper Hviid]

When I got my Kobo, I found it a bit silly to keep score of how many books I have read and for how many hours. I thought such a feature belonged in a video game and not in litterature.

But somehow I ended up loving that feature. Some of my motivation for starting on another book is to boost my reading score.

Still I think the archivements are a bit too stupid, and I'm still a bit irritated by the share-on-facebook feature. Even if I was a user of the facebook website, I wouldn't want to be 'connected' when reading a book. Constant distractions don't mix with deep concentrated reading.

I thinks it is a bit like what is described in THE SHALLOWS, where the author mentions how the multitasking and distractions we know from the internet gets incorporated into various aspects of our culture - in this case, book reading.

So, what do you think of the Kobo's more colorful features?

[Joques]

Eh. I've had a few factory resets, which reset the score, so I don't care any more. I did, before. And I was dismayed when I realized a factory reset had wiped my score. For five minutes, then I shrugged my shoulders and carried on reading :-)

[EndlessWaves]

The total hours number is useful for keeping track of how long a battery charge lasts when using different features (light, sync etc.) but no, apart from that it's just pointless menu clutter for me.

At least it doesn't use pop-ups like the more idiotic side of the computer game market. "Hey guys! The cutscene you've just started watching is the end of the game, no final twist here!"

[GeoffR]

I find the reading hours stat useful for the same reason as EndlessWaves, a measure of how much reading I can get from one battery charge.

The features like awards, Facebook, Pocket, games, Beyond the Book, etc. are of no interest to me, but then they are purely optional extras, I just don't activate/use them and so I never see them. Having them as options doesn't interfere with my use of the device for reading in any way.

[Kasper Hviid]

I actually like the pocket feature. It is useful on the rare occation that I find some text on the internet that I want to actually read. This doesn't happen much, though. Still, I once made this list of Pocket-worthy articles.

The only downside is that Pocket refuses to display a lot of web pages, and that it doesn't even bother to notify you about its failures. Also, pocket articles don't count on my reading score.

[khintul]

I found these features unique and interesting for a very short time after I got the Aura HD. Since I alternate between reading on it and the Paperwhite, the numbers are fairly meaningless, and now just useless clutter to me.

[jandrew]

I don't keep score, I turned off the reading stats. I also have no interest in the social media / games features.

I do, however, use Pocket regularly -- I find it a very convenient way to shift web content to my device.

[jersysman]

That's what I like about the features. They are there for those that want to use them. For those that don't, you can just ignore them because the reader has to interact with the device to get to them.

[dakini]

on the two Kobos I've had, the stats and awards have never worked fully. right now, my new Glo says I've read 76 books. at an average of 200 pages each, since I read literary fiction mainly, that should be about 15000 pages. My donut award for consuming large quantities says I'm at 2% ... which from my last reader I know isn't correct.

The only stat I really keep track of is what percentage of the way through a book I am.

[cybmole]

the reading stats idea is fatally flawed.

1. if you start a new book & flip thru many opening pages of pointless bumff - title pages, dedications, epigrams, praise.... in order to get to the actual story. that is all used in your reading speed. so you are now assumed to be able to read a page per second!

2. if you actually remove a part-read book, then re-add it & start back in the middle, the algo has no idea what's going on and cannot estimate how many hours to completion.

3. again, on the how long left - you may not be planning to read each and every one of those 150+ pages of footnotes at the end of your mega-tome, but the devicxe does not know that

[delph]

I enjoyed the stats and awards when I first got my Glo. One of my hobbies is gaming, so collecting awards was like collecting achievements in games. Then I got all of the non-social awards and discovered that I lost my time with a factory reset. I still think it's neat that these things are tracked, but I don't really care about them.

[DNSB]

Nope. I use my ereader to read and really don't care about the awards or the reading stats. I don't keep them with physical books and see little real value in keeping them for ebooks. It's not a contest -- I've read more books than someone else or I read books faster than someone else -- it's a matter of me being able to read books I enjoy and being able to take a good chunk of my library with me.

Regards,
David

[Ripplinger]

What DNSB said for me too. It was a novel idea when I first saw it for about 5 minutes, but I have zero interest in connecting to any social media sites with what I've read, and the first time you have to do a reset and everything gets reset back to the start, you realize how truly pointless it is. I just want a solid reliable device to read on, and that's it.

[TechniSol]

Well, if nothing else, the above illustrates that they might improve things considerably, at least for those who want them, by syncing your stats. As for complaints regarding how they can't determine stats with accuracy if you don't plan to read something, etc., that's about like expecting software to read your mind... Though it is a fair and correct observation in the broadest sense.