CONFUSING signs are emerging from the camp that has always promoted reading of books on digital platforms -- in the sense many enthusiasts are beginning to admit, though slyly, that people only talk of reading digital versions of books etc, but very small numbers actually engage themselves in such reading. What is the truth? -- one may ask.. and may not actually get an authentic answer. That is what had happened with the loud-thinker on several occasions in the past some time. A senior academic told him that he found his students actually not reading digital versions as intensely and keenly as expected. A book-publisher, too, confided with the loud-thinker that habitually, he proposes to his author-clients a parallel publication of digital books in addition to the hard copy publication.

 

“That costs only marginally more. But most authors in different languages decline the proposal stating that their experience suggests that actual reading of digital versions by people is minimal, which was why they do not want to waste their energy and money on the digital format of their works.” A tech-savvy young man in his early thirties, too, said in a social conversation that all the talk of reading of digital versions is “bunkum, and very few actually find time and inclination to read the digital books”. The loud-thinker has found over the past few months that countless numbers of people have only a dim view of digital reading. Of course, everybody talks tall and loud about digital books etc, but that appears to be the case only for social consumption. The senior academic who said he did not find his students doing a serious reading of digital versions of text books available so easily everywhere, also told the loud-thinker that most people who read digital versions complain of mild headache and dry eyes and itching on the face.

 

Quite a few medical doctors confirmed that they had cases of people with similar symptoms in people who tried to indulge in heavy digital reading. “It is perfectly fine for anybody to read some material digitally, but to read books that run into several hundred pages appears a difficult task for most,” a retired university librarian of a college in Nagpur said when asked about the issue. WHAT is the reality, then? For, an owner of a book store, too, told the loud-thinker that she had found the demand for printed books is slowly but certainly picking up. Hence the question: What is the reality? For most, this may not be a major issue at all. But for the loud-thinker who has not missed even nuances of different social trends for the past so many decades, the signals from the digital reading arena indicate certain negativism. If this observation has any substance, then there may be emerging a happy news that printed books are returning in public demand.