Having the option to listen to the information has many advantages, namely enabling us to perform other tasks whilst assimilating the information more efficiently. Blind and visually impaired individuals have taken advantage of their auditory skills to assimilate information and to increase efficiency, developed a technique of speeding up the playback rate of the audio. For the majority of individuals this technique is more efficient than speed-reading, a page of information can be listened to 3 times quicker than being read in the conventional way. When playing our eBooks the text highlighting and audio playback can be speeded up, this increase in speed resolves the issue of digesting the information more efficiently. Listening to the information also has the effect of freeing an individual from their screen, and allows them to perform other tasks whilst still assimilating the information.
Most people purchase a newspaper at some time during the day, some even buy one on a daily basis.
Imagine for a moment that your eBook handheld device has been accepted as part of every day life. You're in the kitchen cooking the tea and mail arrives, on your eBook reader. It's your personalised newspaper. You have pre-programmed the eBook to receive only information that is of interest to you. You open your mail and are presented with your personalised news, the main headlines, an article on the local community, an article concerning schools and education because you have young children.