Rising trend of e-reading, blessing or curse?
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E-mail Xinhua, July 18, 2014
With one simple scan, teacher Gladys Lau fed into her handset information about an exhibition featuring Hong Kong literature and writers at the Hong Kong Book Fair, which opened Wednesday.
Now Lau is ready to share the material with her students online.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the largest annual literary event in town is more than just a platform for book shopping spree, but is also presenting a smorgasbord of cultural activities -- renowned writers' seminars, art gallery exhibitions, story telling sessions for kids, to name but a few.
What's more, it is adding in a greater deal of digital elements, for instance, putting QR codes beside exhibits, to encourage visitors to read information in detail through gadgets, despite worries that increase in use of electronic products is posing threats towards traditional reading.
"It is inevitable. Nowadays young people are too used to manage their daily tasks with gadgets," Lau said. The Chinese literature teacher in a secondary school in Kwai Ching district said electronic and traditional reading are complementary to each other, with the former helping readers obtain vast amount of information at a time, while the latter leading to further details.
A survey conducted by the Youth Research Center of Hong Kong Youth Federation between June 26 and July 12 revealed a glimpse of the change in reading habit among young people.
Of the 522 interviewees, aged between 10 and 24, a majority of them were reading digitally, with 75 percent of them reading through mobile phones, while the second most commonly used carrier was desktop computers, followed by tablets. Almost half of the interviewees said they took part in e-reading because it was convenient.
The survey also showed that each reader spent an average 86 minutes per day on e-reading. The largest percentage of interviewees found "free download" the most appealing feature of digital reading.
But interestingly, printed material was the most popular reading medium among the young readers, with close to 40 percent voting for it, while 37 percent preferred reading through mobile phones.
Chan Shui Ching, head of the youth research center, said, while rapid development of digital technology, which allows faster and more convenient downloads of electronic materials, can enrich reading experience, young people should be prudent when choosing e- reading material and avoid unhealthy ones.
"It is not a matter of choosing from electronic books or printed books," said Ngan Shun Kau, editorial consultant of Cosmos Books, a major publisher in Hong Kong. But mobile phones, facebook, twitter and the like are occupying a lot of time of young people, who became more prone to read in a "fast and shallow" way, he added.
Lau agreed that students are not as keen to read material, either in electronic or printed form, in detail as in the past, adding that through her observation, local students are reading less in recent years.
Besides having an impact on people's reading habit, digital activities are also to blame for the drop in sales of printed books. Last year, some exhibitors of the book fair complained about the lower-than-expected sales growth -- down to about 2 percent from a double digit recorded in the previous year.
According to a survey by the book fair's organizer Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the growth in spending on e-books was more significant compared to printed books.
"E-reading is irresistible, it's not a strike, but transformation," which, Business Development General Manager Terence Leung of Sino United Publishing Limited said, came with the development of technology and the change in consuming pattern. "With wifi, (customers) can buy e-books and get samples. It can be done at home and bookshops."
The flagship store of Hong Kong Joint Publishing, a member of Sino United, is testing the waters. Customers can use free wifi provided by the shop to read e-books for free, including books that are not yet available in print version.
"It is now a transition period and printed books are still the mainstream," Leung said. Though e-reading in Hong Kong is at a preliminary stage, he is sanguine about the future of the e-book market.
Ngan, however, suggested that unlike Western countries where people reply more on online purchase due to geographic reasons, Hong Kong is a convenient place where readers can easily find a bookshop in the vicinity of their home or work place.
"Many people pop in to a bookshop during lunchtime and buy their books there," he said, adding that unless the books they need are not available, they will then go online.
Ngan agreed that the decline of sales volume is a plight facing all print media, and because of the irresistible trend of digital reading, there is a need to develop e-books. But he did not think it is the right timing to move into high gear when printed books are irreplaceable at the moment.
"Hong Kong publishers can't depend on selling e-books alone. However, if we set the price of an e-book too high, people would rather get a printed one from the bookshop," he said.
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