Print Books vs. E-Books – Part 3

September 29, 2015September 29, 2015Leave a comment

This is a follow up post to my previous post: Print Books VS. E-Books and Print Books VS E-Books – Part 2.

Amazon might promote Kindle E-Reader as device ‘for the love of reading.’ But we would get locked into Amazon’s system if we buy the Kindle E-reader. A friend of mine reads using his smart phone through Kindle e-Reading app as well as Flipkart’s e-reading app. He says he does comparison shopping and buys from the vendor who offers a book at the lowest price.

Reading only using e-reader also makes it difficult to come across interesting books other than what Amazon’s or other such vendors’s recommendation algorithm would suggest. In one particular instance, I was watching Barry Shwartz’s TED video on my laptop and then decided to buy his book, ‘The Paradox of Choice’. Using only the e-reader would rule out possibilities like these.

While most of the time we come across opinions that portray Social Media as unnecessary distraction, they can be useful too. Most non-fiction authors take between one year and three years to publish a new book. Following them on Social Media sites like Twitter would help us to find out about any follow up research or development after a book (on a particular topic) got published. Professors/Authors like Steven Pinker, Richard Thaler, Dan Ariely and Nassim Nicholas Taleb post about interesting ongoing academic research from their respective Twitter handles quiet often. Some of these ongoing research might act as supplement to the book that we might be reading. As is always the case with any social media we have to have the discipline to selectively browse and read, otherwise we will be wasting our time. This is where a general purpose device like a smartphone or a tablet might come in handy rather than a dedicated e-reader.

Having access social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp will also help us to share with our friends and acquaintances about what book we are reading. Rather than a way of just bragging, we can use these tools to share quotes, anecdotes, statistics, etc. from the book that we are reading. About a few days ago I was reading an article by James Altucher on Pope Francis. I found a quote by Pope Francis about the media very interesting and I shared it via my Twitter handle. What’s the fun of any activity including reading if we cannot assimilate (good) aspects of it into our personality and bring it to the fore in our social interactions? Reading from sources like blogs, forums and websites will also not be possible with a dedicated e-reader.

Having a general purpose device like a smartphone or tablet can be useful in other situations as well. On a couple of occasions, I have taken snaps at the most unlikeliest of places and times using my smartphone and used these snaps later to write blog posts (Examples: Urban Nomads, Free Bird Peeking at Caged Birds and Cloud – awkward wingman). There was another occasion when I was waiting in the reception of a dental clinic while my wife was getting her dental procedure done, I opened the Kindle e-reading app and read a book.

With passage time displays in smartphones and tablets might improve to negate some of the advantage enjoyed by e-readers. There might be some new development such as in spectacles and contact lens that can eliminate or at least drastically reduce the eye strain developed due to reading on smartphone or tablet displays.

Amazon markets its Kindle e-reader with the tagline: “For the love of reading.” In a way, we can assume, any e-reader carries a hidden tagline: ‘For the confinement of reading from e-books alone.” While there is no doubt that e-books are superior to printed books on a number of utility factors, a dedicated e-reader is not absolutely necessary to enjoy these benefits. Ultimately buying and owning a dedicated e-reader is more a matter of affordability and preference than any technological requirement to enjoy e-books. A general purpose device like a smartphone or a tablet would allow us to read from a myriad sources in addition to e-books. We can actually use a smartphone or a tablet as a device to fulfil and enhance our ‘love for reading’ provided we only have the discipline to do so.

Eloquent failure is better than boring success – Raphael DiLuzio

January 30, 2015January 29, 2015Leave a comment

I was watching YouTube videos after a gap of few weeks. I was not planning to share any video here. But, one comment made by the speaker made me share the video here.

The comment is: ‘Eloquent failure is better than boring success.’ Enjoy the video…..

Worth a Watch: Life finds a Way

November 11, 2014November 11, 2014Leave a comment

I came across this TED talk by Ramanan Laxminarayan (Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy) titled, ‘The coming crisis in antibiotics.’ Definitely worth a watch. The Issue: Bacteria are becoming resistant to Antibiotics. The Key Message: Life find a way. It’s not only a problem in Antibiotics, but we are seeing this issue in multiple areas: including drug resistant tuberculosis, resistance developed by viruses and agricultural pests, etc. There are number of ideas discussed on how to handle the issue with ideas drawn from the energy sector. Definitely a relevant topic for this year and a very important topic that everyone including government, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and the general public should plan and execute for the long term well being on the human race.

SUCCESS

October 19, 2014October 23, 20254 Comments

SUCCESS is the destination which most people if not all of mankind intends to arrive at. The meaning of success could be different for different people; but in popular culture reaching the top echelons of ones chosen field along with the associated fame and money is considered to be success in professional life. It is also generally agreed that true success is a combination of success in both personal and professional lives. But why do a small proportion of people in any generation succeed while a vast majority of people fail? What is the single most important characteristic that determines future success? And when can we spot the traits for future success in a person? It so happens that one can spot the indicator for future success as early as four years of age!!!

And what is the characteristic that is used to determine if a kid would be successful in future? Is it the kid’s linguistic skill? Is it his or her inborn talent for certain sporting or artistic pursuits? Is it the kid’s ability to develop and retain friends? Or is it the early promise that the kid shows for easily learning math and science? The answer to these questions is an emphatic NO. The characteristic that can be used to determine future success is self-discipline or one’s ability to delay gratification. The study which identified that one’s ability to delay gratification is the single most important predictor of future success is probably one of the most famous psychological studies of the second half of twentieth century.

This study was carried out between the late 1960s and early 1970s at Stanford University and was headed by a distinguished professor by the name of Walter Mischel. The study itself is popularly called as the ‘The Marshmallow Study’ or ‘The Marshmallow Test’ both in the intellectual circles of psychology as well as in popular press and mass media. In essence the test is simple: A group of four year old kids were taken into an observation room one at a time. On a table in front of the kid, the researcher would place one marshmallow/ cookie and a calling bell. The researcher would instruct the kid that he would leave the kid alone in the room for some time (usually about 15 minutes) to attend to some urgent work. The kid can eat the marshmallow any time he wants by ringing the bell. But if the kid can wait till the researcher returns without eating the marshmallow/ cookie, he/she will get two marshmallows/ cookies. The research obviously led to two groups of kids: the ones who could not wait till the researcher returned & ended up eating the marshmallow and the group that was able to delay its gratification and wait for the researcher to return and hence was able to earn two marshmallows/ cookies. The researchers tracked both these groups of kids (as much as possible) over the next several years. They found that the kids from the second group were more successful (health, professional & personal) than the kids in the first group. Professor Mischel feels that the skills we use to delay gratifications are the same ones that we would use to make good choices in life.

I first heard about this study in the TED talk ‘The Discipline of Finishing’ by Conor Neill. The fact that we can determine if a kid will go on to lead a successful life by 4 years of his/her age and the fact that self-discipline and not intelligence is a good predictor of future success are equally mind blowing. Since then I have come across authors writing about this study in newspaper articles and books. In another TED talk by Joachim de Posada, he talks about his experience of replicating the ‘Marshmallow Test’ in his home country and the implications of the results. The video of kids trying to overcome the temptation of eating the Marshmallow is hilarious.

The New Yorker published a detailed article in 2009 that provides vivid details of the study and also includes interviews of some of the participants in the original study. A more recent article by The New Yorker recounts how the psychologist (Walter Mischel) who conducted the most famous study on self-control had trouble quitting his habit of chain-smoking. Walter Mischel is a legend in the field of psychology with a number of honors to his name including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. He is currently a Professor with Department of Psychology at Columbia University.

A long overdue book on the ‘Marshmallow Test’ by Professor Mischel himself was published in September 2014. Professor Mischel recently gave a talk at The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). Professor Mischel answered a number of questions from the audience and went on to clarify that the intention of his study was never to preach self-denial.

As I was watching the video I was wondering if what is true for an individual could be true for a society as a whole. What if self-discipline of members of the society at the individual level would translate at the aggregate level into increased success (higher Human Development Index) for the society as a whole? It would be interesting to look at the results of such a study. I wish the ‘Marshmallow Test’ and its implications would become popular among the Indian public. I also wish that the emphasis of Indian parents would be more on teaching life skills (psychology, personal finance, better civic sense, communication skills, better decision making, etc.) to their kids rather than just providing their kids with formal education at good schools. It would also be nice if Indian politicians and bureaucrats in charge of devising the curriculum for Indian schools would also include these skills as a part of the curriculum rather just focusing on Mathematics and Science.