Prompt #9

First, how have reading and books changed since you were a child, for you specifically? Second, talk a little about what you see in the future for reading, books, or publishing - say 20 years from now. Will we read more or less, will our reading become more interactive? What will happen to traditional publishing?

For me, I am not sure the actual books have changed so much as the acceptance of talking about the books I read has. When I was younger I got into fantasy novels and was reading out of the young adult and adult section by middle school. I does seem like many novels are now more openly discussing controversial content, and people are more open to discussion about them. I read a lot of controversial books in my younger years, and my parents always supported my love for literature. Maybe this is why the only major difference I have noticed in my reading habits since I was a child is more mature content and that I now own a Kindle.

I feel like the future of reading will change in twenty years from now, but maybe not as drastically as we may think. I seriously doubt that books in print are going anywhere, but I definitely see an increase in the number of eBook publications in the future. I think that books will probably get more interactive as well. I have noticed in my app stores an increase of text based story games becoming available for free in a variety of genres. The story for several of them changes based on decisions you make in the text, which is really cool. Choose your own adventure stories aren’t exactly new, but the eBook and app game formats are. I recently played a horror text-based game on my kindle and it allowed me to choose my name, gender, solve riddles, and really insert myself into the story. The way I wanted the storyline to go based on my decisions helped decide how the protagonist approached problems, if I wanted to try and form relationships with other characters, and who lived and died. I think that this style of choose your own adventure publishing will take off more in a few years. Again, I doubt that traditional publication will see too much change, apart from more digital content. However, it is hard to know exactly what the future will hold and what advances in technology will come along and shake everything up.