Ebook Readers on the Cover of the New Yorker

New Yorker covers, the best of them, are funny and timely, and often point to an uncomfortable truth about the way we live now. The November 2 issue of the The New Yorker magazine, which arrived at my house three days before Halloween, is another memorable one. Here we see a line of trick-or-treating children, waiting for candy, while the accompanying adults stand back, all reading ebooks on their new ebook reading devices.

Instead of interacting with their children, or with each other, these adults are mesmerized by the latest new thing: a classic case of right technology in the wrong situation. Now that we can use technology 24 hours every day, does not mean that we should.

What this New Yorker cover does prove, to me at least, is that ebooks are here, and that this is the begining of the digital reading revolution. Let's hope that we can all work together — readers, authors, and publishers — and this time make it work.