Maybe you are not one of the thousands of consumers who rushed to order your very own Kindle, hours after Amazon.com introduced its new wireless, electronic reader last month. Maybe you're thinking that all kinds of gadgets for downloading books have failed in the past, that bookstores appear as crowded as ever, and that literature is one form of content that should not be digitized.

There's already the Crackberry. Now this. How is one to find any leisure time away from a computer these days?
I'm inclined to agree, but I've also worked in technology long enough to know my view is more nostalgic than realistic. People are always skeptical that technology will change deep-seated behaviors, such as reading the morning newspaper, but in the long run the technology almost always wins, unless it is a really bad technology.
A lot of the electronic book readers that have been introduced in the past have been clunky and costly.

The Kindle, on the other hand, comes loaded with 90,000 books, magazines and newspapers. 90,000! Considering how all this compactly delivered content will make life easier for everyone from students with bursting backpacks to people like me who like to carry multiple books on long plane rides - not to mention all the trees whose lives are spared -- how long will we continue to wax nostalgic about paperbound books that have pages turned down and writing in the margin and even a vague scent of the previous owner?

If you're feeling a little sad about the soon-to-be old-fashioned paper book, you may enjoy this essay. But just remember what Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos said when he unveiled the Kindle. There was a time when papyrus was considered cutting edge too.