Last week I talked about books as objects of cultural consumption, where I considered the commodification, consumption and material culture of books. It was a general survey of how we treat books as consumer objects. Then Asti commented that what interested her the most was my discussion of reading as a social endeavour. She views reading as a personal activity, which I largely do too. Yet I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to explore the notion that reading is a social activity? Thus here we are, contemplating if indeed, reading is social.
The Rise of E-Readers
Digital books and electronic readers particularly facilitate reading as a social activity. So many of them have wifi capabilities, providing readers yet another avenue to get connected via the Internet.
Amazon Kindle & Kindle App
One function on the Kindle that stood out to me is the popular highlights feature. When it’s enabled on the device, readers are able to see which parts have been highlighted the most by others who have read the book one is reading. I took a look at Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and found that a popular highlight had been highlighted by 242 other Kindle readers.
“242 other people highlighted this part of the book.”
This revelation tells me at least two things:
- I am not the only one who is reading/has read Fangirl. (For the record, I actually have yet to read it.)
- 242 people highlighted that part. Duh.
I wonder what kind of impact that has on the cognitive reception of readers but at this point, I can only speculate. I wouldn’t be surprised though if subconsciously readers do get affected. I wouldn’t be surprised either if the number of highlights has varying impacts as well, say a dozen highlights versus a couple of hundreds. Either way, popular highlights encroach on personal reading time because they draw on the reading of other people.
Aside from the popular highlights, Kindle devices are also very much integrated with Goodreads. Reading updates can easily be made in real time. Finished reading 37% of a book? Let everyone know pronto. Have thoughts about a specific section? Tag on your thoughts as you update your reading progress.
Plus, it’s never been easier to share a quote from a book one is currently reading. No more typing —just selecting and sharing. Sharing is not limited to Goodreads either. Facebook and Twitter can easily be synced as well.
As long as one is connected to the Internet with a Kindle, one is tethered to other readers. Doesn’t matter if one is cooped up alone at home in a very comfortable bed. Social connections extend to the online world, as does reading.
Kobo E-Reader & Kobo App
Kobo also contributes to the increasing social reading experience. Even though the social aspects aren’t as intrusive as on a Kindle, the Kobo interface begs you to integrate your reading with social networks.
The main menu of the Kobo app includes the Friends section, goading readers to go ahead and add some friends. Clicking on that prompts users to sign into Facebook, in order to connect with friends who are also using Kobo to read. Connecting with Facebook allows friends to see what they each are currently reading, what their reading statistics are (that Kobo tracks) and their awards.
Those who are into award stickers will find lots of incentives to do particular tasks. These tasks however, are not all reading-related. In fact, one of these stickers requires users to sync Kobo with Facebook in order to earn that sticker. Beyond earning awards, users can also share the awards they have earned on either Facebook or Twitter.
Social Media
Social media encourages people to share everything about themselves. Things they’re doing, thinking, reading, listening to, etc. There’s a social media platform for practically anything you can think of. Even inventing products has been made social, courtesy of Quirky. Of course books and reading have also been sucked into the social media bubble.
Goodreads
The biggest social networking site for book lovers has to be Goodreads. By the end of 2013, 29 million users were on Goodreads.
Goodreads users can connect with friends, follow other users, and be followed. Besides book reviews, status updates of books one is currently reading, reading progress, quotes, etc can be shared. Users can even compare books with other users to see which books they have in common and how their reading tastes line up. Venturing beyond one’s own profile also opens up the option of joining groups that host read-alongs, discuss books, etc, all according to one’s interests.
In a way, Goodreads is the online social hub for books and reading.
Bookish Social Networks
Besides Goodreads, there are other social networkings sites that are aimed at readers. They might not be as big as Goodreads but they still garner a host of communities where readers share their reading lives with one another.
Anyone who has ever bothered filling out all the sections of their Facebook profile will have come across the Books section. That section is basically there to allow users to share all the books they have read, want to read, and liked.
Status updates too allow Facebook users to share which books they are currently reading, along with any thoughts they might want to share. The day books added to a status update will be catalogued is bound to come.
Going Offline, Remaining Social Readers
Book Clubs
Book clubs immediately come to my mind when I think of reading as a social activity. Members generally read the same books, so that they can readily discuss them when they come together. Or perhaps they might sit down together once a week somewhere and read concurrently at a cozy café. It’s mostly up to the individual book clubs. Whichever way they operate, reading is their common activity.
School Curricula
Reading is also important in classrooms. Literature classes necessitate that books and reading be involved. Book reports are all too common in language classes. Silent reading sessions are also part of the programme in many schools, forcing students to read; even if truly done silently and individually, there’s the social pressure to read.
I Rest my Case, Reading Is Social
Seeing how social media isn’t even necessary to foster reading as a social activity, even Luddites cannot escape the the social side of reading. Reading isn’t such a solitary activity after all. Talking about books, discussing books, recommending books, sharing notes and thoughts about books all make reading a social activity. Turns out the Internet didn’t make reading social, it just made it more social. As it stands, reading is social.
Did you generally consider reading as a social or as a personal activity? Have any of my thoughts challenged your own?
Confab ˈkän-ˌfab, kən-ˈ noun an informal discussion, often about a particular topic
Discussion posts are some of my favourite posts to read. New ideas get shared that way, or old ideas are revisited and given a new spin. And of course, I get to be my opinionated self as I hoist my views upon others, while pretending to be objective. Or maybe not. I do welcome alternate views and I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
I have to admit.. I am secretly addicted to awards for things. I play a lot of video games and get achievements for doing certain things. So that Kobo app is appealing to me. I used to participate a lot in this app called Getglue (it’s called something else now) and that site allows you to check into TV shows/movies and you would earn stickers. The cool thing about it was the stickers would be mailed to you in the mail after you accumulated so many. I loved it and thought it was fun.
Great post! I didn’t realize that you could sync your Kindle with Goodreads that much…I mean I know that it gives you the option when you’re finished a book, but I didn’t realize that you could do updates WHILE you were reading, too. I’m definitely going to have to try that!
I love the quotes feature on my Kindle. The only problem I have with it is that a lot of the books I read on my Kindle are ARCs and, because of that, it doesn’t sync your highlights to the online database of highlights — it only does that for actual books, not “personal documents.” So that kind of sucks :/ But other than that I really love it.
I’m not sure exactly how Goodreads functions but there is an integrated Goodreads app with the latest software update on the Kindle Paperwhite.
Ooh, interesting. What is it about the highlights feature that you like on the Kindle?
This is what I’m talking about: http://heresthethingblog.com/2013/01/15/kindle-tip-view-highlights-web/
Basically, if you highlight in a Kindle book, it uploads your quote to an online database. Then you can access your database and look at every single quote you’ve ever highlighted. This is REALLY helpful if I want to quote a book in a review or remember a meaningful line, but don’t want to have to type it/write it down. You can go to the database, and then copy + paste your quote to wherever you want to use it (Goodreads, your blog, etc.). But what I DON’T like about this feature is that it doesn’t store the data online when you highlight in ARCs, because ARCs are sent to Kindles as “personal documents,” not actual books. So the online database ONLY has quotes that you highlighted in actual books. You can go on your Kindle and “view highlighted passages” in a specific book or document, but you can’t use that to copy + paste one online, and the formatting of the way it shows you your highlights is very awkward and not user-friendly.
Oh, I didn’t realize that the popular highlights feature and the quotes feature were two different thing. My bad!
I didn’t realize that the quotes were in an online database. I always wondered but didn’t bother much because I usually just access the text file in the Kindle folder when I connect it to my Mac. I usually copy and paste from there, and the format of the document doesn’t matter when it comes to saving all those highlights and notes from the ebooks I read.
Even before book blogging, I thought of reading as pretty social. When the HP books came out, my friends and I were all over that. We would read and discuss our favourite parts/characters, then go to the movies, and just have fun. Some people think that people who love books are loners, but I don’t really see that. Especially with book blogging taking over so much of my time now, haha!
Yes! Harry Potter fostered such a reading culture among my friends too! Those who could afford it would buy the latest book that had come out and pass them around for the rest to read after they were done. I did have classmates in the past who were such bookworms, they wouldn’t really interact with others, preferring to isolate themselves. But that really is the monitory and doesn’t justify that stereotype of loner bookworms.
Hmm…this is a really interesting post Josephine! :) I’ve always thought of reading as a solitary activity – something that I do as a past time outside of school or whatnot – but now that you mention it, it totally IS a social activity with blogging and reviewing. Thanks for sharing, and great post! <3
Thank you, Zoe! Yeah, I used to think of reading as something that I do alone as well. Other hobbies like sports require me to be involved with other people but reading? It’s just me and my book, I thought. But the more I reflected on it over the past months, the more I realized that even reading is a social activity.
I’m honestly torn. Whilst the points you have made about reading being social are very valid, and of course by me blogging about the books I’ve read and such makes it a social activity, at the same time it still feels very personal to me. The act of reading is personal, the outcome of reading is social… Perhaps? Who knows, I’m probably way overthinking it!
Great post!
:-)
You’re not overthinking it, Jade! Haha. Your thoughts make a lot of sense. I think there are so many things that are personal to us that we make social anyway. Take weddings. That love that a couple shares is personal but a wedding itself is a very social event. In the same vein, reading is not entirely an activity of the individual either. That doesn’t mean reading becomes social in absolute terms but it sure is much more social than we realize. That’s how I see it.
As much as reading and making it social is great, I don’t want to have that popular quote thing. That would simply be intrusive to me because I want to have my own opinion about what I like. That’s why I don’t like doing readalongs much because I want to read books at my own pace, as dictated by the needs of my life.
But then sharing what you liked is what is the best part of making reading social. I love being able to connect with a bookish community because I don’t have that in real life, and this whole book blogging community is great.
Thankfully it’s possible to switch off the popular highlights feature. That was the first thing I did when I first bought a Kindle Paperwhite last year. I don’t like seeing them either when I read. But I think it can be an interesting research tool for sociologists, marketers, publishers, and even authors. For authors it’d be a good way to say what kinda stuff readers out there seem to like.
Well, I think no matter how personal something is to us, there’s alway this tiny part that wants to share the joy with someone else. I’m glad you found that outlet in blogging :)
This was really interesting! Reading for me has always been a bit personal, a bit social. I read by myself but I also love sharing what I read with others which is basically the whole reason I started book blogging in the first place! And fun that you included Kobo! I love their little awards. They definitely aren’t all reading related but still, seeing my collection grow is exciting and not that I really need any more incentive to read but it’s a cool idea!
I think that’s probably the most accurate observation. Reading is neither entirely social, nor entirely isolated. Though I believe it tends a lot more towards the social than we often realize. Yay! The fun in book blogging is precisely to be able to share our bookish thoughts :D I use the Kobo app occasionally but I don’t think I ever finished reading an ebook on it. Haha. The awards couldn’t convince me to stick around. By the way, you use a Kobo e-reader or the Kobo app?
I have an eReader! I have the very first Kobo Touch though so it’s a bit outdated. Feel like it’s going to crash on me any day now! :/
Oh, I definitely think of reading being social, too. To me it’s always been social. I don’t think you need social media, or e-readers to make reading a social activity. It can be much more down to earth. When I read a book, I talk about it to my friends and coworkers. It gives us things to talk about. That’s how it’s social to me.
I think it’s wonderful that you can so easily share your love for books and reading with your friends and coworkers! It’s interesting that you’ve always thought of it as social on the whole because without social media, reading has felt much more isolated to me. Although yes, sharing books with friends, whenever the newest Harry Potter book came out would be a good example for me. A few of my classmates in high school would buy themselves a copy, then pass them around the class once they were done reading.