Writers…

… meet the real reason for the demise of your book sales. I give you the Smartphone!!!

For book sales to once again occur, people have to be forced to put down their habit forming highly addictive Smartphones and apps, for them to even begin to want to read anything longer than a headline or a Tweet. Let alone to suggest they might actually like to expand their minds by reading an entire book. Lets face it, as writers we have to acknowledge that a paradigm shift has taken place in the last few years when it comes to the younger generation, since constant use of Smartphones has created short attention spans and fleeting gratification in their users!

The novelist Howard Jacobson said it best in this recent article. “Blame the reader!” I completely agree with him. For a change publishers aren’t the bad guys – highly addictive technology is!

Just think of the reaction of your own kids and grandkids when you tell them to turn their device off when you are trying to eat and hold a family discussion around the dinner table, or in your living room. I can hear their moans and groans from here can’t you? A handful of schools here in the UK have a no Smartphone policy, taking their student’s devices from them until the school day is over.

Do they ever learn anything worthwhile from their Smartphones? Doubtful. If needs be, force them to read a book by threatening to take away their Smarphones. If that doesn’t work then tell them that their device is freely accessed by the authorities without their knowledge which is true by the way. In the UK’s case the organisation concerned is GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters.

It should come as no surpise that Big Brother loves to eavesdrop on us. They also love to know our online habits – be they savoury or otherwise. The aforementioned are just two things that greatly interest the authorities in today’s increasingly paranoid world.

Needless to say, I do not possess a Smartphone, nor do I want one. The chief reasons being the exorbitant purchase price for something which has already reached its sell by date before you even buy it. The other is the miniscule screen size. This laptop’s screen is small enough.

Don’t get me wrong, technology is a wonderful thing. After all without it we would all still be living in caves. But to become its slave is never a good idea. Something the Smartphone generation has yet to learn…

PS – by the way, GCHQ has access to every site I use here on my laptop, even though I regularly delete my search history as part of my laptop housekeeping to free up space on its hard-drive. But then again I’ve got nothing to hide.

🙂