How eBooks Track Your Reading Habits: The Transparent Reader in the Digital Age

The average Kobo reader needs only seven hours to finish the last book of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy – that’s 57 pages per hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle users have highlighted the same line in the second book: “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” And on Barnes & Noble’s Nook platform, the first thing most readers do after finishing the first book is download the next one.

This news, triggered by an article in the Wall Street Journal, is currently making rounds in numerous media outlets. While the popularity of printed books could only be assessed after the fact through various reviews and sales success, this can now be done immediately and without delay with eBooks. At the same time, the WSJ describes private reading in the eBook sector as a fading model: “The centuries-old private, solitary act of reading has become a measurable and quasi-public activity with the advent of electronic books.”

eBook readers record a lot of data from their users. How long does someone read a book? Is it finished? How quickly is it read? When and where are pauses most often taken? Is it read a second time? Where are highlights and notes made, shared, or forwarded? Thanks to integrated Wi-Fi or 3G, all these things can be captured and transmitted to the manufacturer without any problems. Some features (e.g., sharing notes via Facebook) require users’ active participation, but generally, users are unaware of this tracking.

According to the WSJ, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Google are the most advanced in this area and can precisely track readers’ reading habits through eBook readers and tablet or smartphone apps. Barnes & Noble, for instance, can track how far and quickly someone reads or which genres the person prefers. According to Jim Hilt, Vice President of B&N, this data is passed on to publishers to provide them insights into their books and help improve them in the future. Moreover, he mentions that they are only in the early stages of data analysis.

This development, however, is not new. The most well-known example of data collection about its users is the social media site Facebook. Although its stock market debut was rather unsuccessful, the business with user data is still considered a highly lucrative future market. The data is analyzed and resold.

The data collection by Amazon & Co. could fulfill a purpose beyond selling to publishers. Amazon is now also active in the publishing business, enabling them to quickly and effectively adjust to new trends with accurate and up-to-date data on reading habits. Critics, however, fear that this kind of monitoring and analysis could quickly result in a literary blandness.

Meanwhile, privacy advocates are demanding that monitoring requires the explicit consent of users or should be optionally deactivatable.

Thanks to Florien for the tip about the article!