Leonard Armstrong Dot Net: Top 10 Personal Technology Influences

I have countless books that I’ve started and never finished. I probably have an equal amount that I’ve never even started. One reason is that I’m a fairly slow reader. Another reason is that I have more plans and desires than I have time. (I know I’m not alone on that one.) And making time to read has never been a high priority for me.

Then, somewhere around 2005 my life changed. A friend was reading The Da Vinci Code and told me that she thought I would really like it. I knew I would never take sufficient time to read the whole book but fate intervened when I turned to…

Technology Influence #5: Audiobooks and eBooks

Actually, the decision to try The Da Vinci Code as an audiobook was also influenced by some coworkers who told me how much they were enjoying The Da Vinci Code and some other titles in audio form. It seemed like a solution I should try. So off to iTunes I went. A couple clicks later I owned my first audiobook. As is the case with many people, it took me a little while to adapt to this new form of content consumption. The mind has a tendency to wander at first. Then, all of a sudden, you realize you missed a few minutes of content. Rewind. Listen again.

But I adapted fairly quickly. And from that point on I’ve never turned back. I’ve read almost 90 books in the years since The Da Vinci Code. Ninety. Nine-zero. That's a phenomenal number for me. And the content has been varied. On paper I generally read non-fiction forms like biography and history. Now I was reading fiction, biography, history, career-related, self-help, classics. Suffice it to say, I love this form of reading. Unlike reading the printed word I can effectively multitask with an audiobook. I listen in the morning while getting ready for work. I listen in the car on my way to work. I listen while taking a walk in the evening. I listen while doing mindless cleaning and other chores around the house. With audiobooks there are a slew of new-found hours every week to get in my reading.

(Note: For those of you wondering why I keep italicizing the word reading when used in relation to the consumption of audiobooks, this is my way of stating that I think it is OK to refer to printed word consumption in audio form as "reading." I am aware that other people do not consider this reading. My blog. My rules.)

But audiobooks do not lend themselves very well to all types of materials. As a technologist by trade, I tend to acquire a number of technical reference materials. Reference books work well when you have some capability to search into the content (even if it is just an index or table of contents in a paper book) and then to go directly to the specific information you need without having to move through the book in a linear fashion. Audiobooks are not well-suited to this type of random access model.

The solution to the moving off of paper reference books came a few years later. The Kindle was first released in late 2007 and grew steadily in popularity. But early versions were expensive,\ relative to what they delivered. Then, in 2010, the iPad was released. Shortly thereafter Amazon ported the Kindle book reader app to the iPad as well as the iPhone, the Mac, Windows, and a slew of other platforms. (See Top 10 Personal Technology Influences – #2 Cross-platform Applications for the benefits of cross-platform applications such as the Kindle app.) The problem of how to remove paper from all my reading soon became a no-brainer. Where audiobooks replace paper for all my non-reference books, eBooks via the Kindle apps became my replacement for paper for all my reference materials.

There is one unexpected downside to replacing hardcopy books with electronic alternates. Leisurely evenings sipping coffee and perusing the aisles at Barnes & Noble or Borders have all but ceased, mostly replaced with a computer screen searching for content in Amazon or iTunes. The downside is less about the bookstores (who, like every business, must be forward-thinking in how to remain relevant) and more about the loss of social contact. For as much as technology becomes "social" I fear people may become less so.

Next: A halfway break from the Top 10 Technology Influences series to talk about something non-tech.
Then: Influence #6 - Cutting the Cord.