One of the problems we face these days is of information overload. We read books, handouts, newspapers, magazines and Internet articles and are expected to have instant recall of the right information at the right time, but that rearely happens with few of us.
We need to understand how we read and what actually we need to change in reading a book.
How do we typically read?
We take a book, sit or lie, (maybe with the TV or the radio or the music system on) and read it from cover to cover. If there is less time (like the night before the exam), we read faster. Our minds wander off and we rudely pull ourselves back from that seductive wonderland, cursing the exam or the deadlines. We get irritated, do not brook any disturbance and feel a sense of achievement when we have finished the book. We remember something about it the next day but within a week, it is gone, it evaporates as quickly as we had crammed it.
If we are more active, we sit upright and we highlight sections of a book. This gives better focus as our hands are busy, and at the end of it we have a fluorescent, highlighted / underlined book. But when we need the information and we read the highlighted paragraphs, do we know what we highlighted and why? We also realise that we have highlighted 50 % of the book. Do we know which book to refer? And if it was a library book?
If we are even more active, we make notes. Start from the first page and assiduously copy salient paragraphs. Better than highlighting as we are actively writing and therefore cannot daydream. Since we are copying, we are reading a paragraph twice or thrice and slowly. If time is short, we make notes faster (illegibly). Sometime we are in-the-zone and we make notes of the book without even knowing what we are writing.
Reading e-Books
E-Books are making a big impact in the way we read, write and use books. There is nothing holding back an expert with years of experience on a particular field to write about all the ins and outs, trade secrets, strengths and weaknesses of the industry.
For a tech-savvy like me or most of the people these days, we are used to download lot many books, mostly the free ones and stock up in our phones or ebook readers and forget them. When you sotumble upon the App and upon the ‘reading’ book you casually read few paragraphs and suddenly a pop-up notification from Social Media App or chat hijacks you and you never return to that book for days or even months together. That’s what personally happened to me many times and I haven’t finished a book that I used to read in few days time in paper-back.
Audio Books
With the advent of the internet, any digital file was available for downloading. Music files and movie files were being downloaded every day and downloadable audio titles became a part of this trend which changed the way people immerse their selves in literature.
The present generation is famous for living life in hyper speed. Millions of people around the world are always moving about in a fast pace trying to meet deadlines and most of them do not have the time or the luxury to sit still and wait for the world to slow down. Most of these people can’t afford to spare some time and read a book which is why the reemergence of audio books became a blessing to most of them.
For those people who can’t wait to read a whole book but still love literature, audio books are the perfect solution to this predicament. So many people download audio titles every day and several of them listen to them while they are driving to work or riding the train or waiting for their laundry to dry. They are the most convenient solution to the person always on the go.
For me this is the medium that has solved the problem to a great extend. I can now ‘listen’ to books and finish them faster. With so much of Traveling on a daily basis to and fro the job, I get lot of time in my car. Though a great lover of Music my music system would always sound good with my favourite numbers and mind-power music, I had to give it up. I downloaded audio files of Lectures, Seminars and my Favourite books and listen to them while I cover miles in the morning and the evenings. I could finish more titles than hard copies or the ebooks. This can be tricky or difficult for few who don’t get enough time to listen audios, but I guess we can always make adjustments and listen these while doing jobs that don’t need our attention.
