E-books vs. sex?
If the New York Times can delve into this issue in a Net context, maybe we can in an e-book one. Here’s the reworked question:
What’s more important to you? E-books or sex?
Be tasteful, gang. This is a family blog.
Now back to All the News That’s Fit to Print. “46 percent of women and 30 percent of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks instead of giving up access to their precious Internet for the same period,” the Times says in paraphrasing a Harris survey that Intel sponsored.
Yo, Jane, over at DearAuthor.com, the romance-book blog! Share your thoughts. And got a DRM or Tower of eBabel angle? Might these two hassles actually threaten marriages by increasing the amount of time devoted to e-books.
I can even see an E Ink angle. With E Ink, unless you have a little lamp or are using a Sony PRS-700 with built-in lighting, the room lights must be on. This just might make E Ink less of a divorce-creator than, say, LCDs—which lend themselves to reading in the dark.
The other issue is the content of E books. My own theory is that romance novels, E or P, just might help pep up marriages.
December 15th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
From Marcus Sundman…pulled out of the stomach of our anti-spam Doberman…
Those are disturbingly small numbers! If someone has a problem with two weeks of sex-abstinence then there’s something wrong with him/her mentally (even hormone-driven teenagers are not instinct-driven like some lower form of animal). OTOH, if someone has no problem living off the net for two weeks then both that person’s job and social life must be very physical. (I’m assuming one won’t get to choose which two weeks of ones life it’s going to be, or otherwise so many factors suddenly come into play that the real question will get completely lost.)
As for e-books vs sex; although they are both pleasant, I don’t think either is very important to have within the next two weeks, so I guess it depends on what mood one happens to be in.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:36 am
E-books or sex? Sex, hands down. I have no problems reading paper books. Sure, e-books are more convenient but that is not a convenience worth giving up sex.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:51 am
> that is not a convenience worth giving up sex
It wasn’t about giving up anything, merely to put something on hold for two weeks.
Also, consider that if you read only p-books for two weeks then when you go back to e-books it probably won’t feel particularly amazing.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Lol, on the other hand, if you switch to just thinking (or reading/watching) about sex for 2 weeks and then go back to the real thing, it probably will feel amazing. Well, it would for me anyway.
I’d have a harder time giving up net access than e-book or even p-book access for 2 weeks, and I do a large amount of offline reading.
For 2 weeks I’d certainly rather skip my approx hour a day of reading (non-work related reading) over my approx hour a day of sex.