Never owned a book?

[knitware]

A work colleague, upon my suggestion, has bought himself a reference book. He sent to me the link and I suggested that at £63 it was an expensive book. His replay came as a bit of a shock, he said he wouldn't know as it’s the first book he’s bought, he’s 27.

I asked about his childhood, comics anything. He said hes never owned a book or bought one all he reads is stuff online.

Is this the norm for a younger generation? My daughter, 3, has lots of books.

[justanother5tar]

Obviously as a child I had them bought for me as gifts.
Never bought one myself though, as you said, read everything online!
Bought my daughter loads though.

[opieoilman]

I find it a bit odd, I used to buy a lot of books, then got an e-reader for convenience and cost. For things like cookery books and manuals for things, I always find a paper version better as each time I go back to a tablet/phone when I'm doing something, I'll need to unlock the screen and wait a few seconds, rather than just looking at the right spot on the page of a book.

[ZOLLAR]

knitware said:

A work colleague, upon my suggestion, has bought himself a reference book. He sent to me the link and I suggested that at £63 it was an expensive book. His replay came as a bit of a shock, he said he wouldn't know as it’s the first book he’s bought, he’s 27.

I asked about his childhood, comics anything. He said hes never owned a book or bought one all he reads is stuff online.

Is this the norm for a younger generation? My daughter, 3, has lots of books.

Nope, I'm 27 and have a large number of books across many different topics.
Probably made easier by the fact my GF is a manager in Macmillan Distribution so gets certain books quite cheap for me

[marcosgt]

At getting on for twice his age, maybe I can't comment, but that seems bloody odd...

My kids (now 22 and 17) both buy themselves books now and then.

Mostly, these days, my daughter's are horribly expensive law books, but my 17 year old son seems to have a good grasp of the relative cost and value of books.

If the book your colleague is looking at really is dear, then it questions where he reads 'online' if he's not grasped the concept of online comparative price shopping

M

[jeff m2]

knitware said:

A work colleague, upon my suggestion, has bought himself a reference book. He sent to me the link and I suggested that at £63 it was an expensive book. His replay came as a bit of a shock, he said he wouldn't know as it’s the first book he’s bought, he’s 27.

I asked about his childhood, comics anything. He said hes never owned a book or bought one all he reads is stuff online.

Is this the norm for a younger generation? My daughter, 3, has lots of books.

I would guess his books for his education were bought by his parents.
I don't buy many books, but I do use the library, I can nearly always get what I want there.

When Kindle was young, the kindle edition was actually more expensive than a soft cover!

[bint]

That sounds crazy. Even though I was brought up as a serial library user (every other week I took out the max allowed from the library with my dad) I had bought at least one book as I asked for WHSmith vouchers by the time I was 12.

[Catz]

I love reading!

Unfortunately younger generations don't seem to see the same appeal. Both my nieces would rather watch something to learn about it than read anything about it.
I find this a little sad tbh.

[Slyjoe]

I once heard someone say "If your telly is bigger than your bookcase, you've got problems"
I've tried to stick to that, and help my kids adhere to it too.