I have talked about some of the things I would like to see in electronic book readers before. I have a feeling that this is a list that is fundamentally incomplete simply because I haven’t sat down and actually analyzed the problem from an engineering standpoint. However, I read something on Cult of Mac recently that was truly depressing.

It appears that analyzing electronic book readers from an engineering standpoint is probably fruitless because they are fundamentally crippled from a marketing standpoint. Cult of Mac cites a New York Times blog post about Steve Jobs passion for computers and electronic devices. In that post Steve Jobs is quoted as saying the following about the Amazon Kindle:

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

His opinion on this area is probably more important than the average person might realize. One of the things that Jobs has demanded mercilessly has been incredible user interfaces. This goes back a long way to his interest in calligraphy. If anyone were to design an electronic reader and do it right, it would be Apple. If I were to bet, I would bet that they have considered making a product like this in recent years and ruled it out based on their findings.

Of course, Cult of Mac also posted a link to a recent study on reading by the National Endowment for the Arts. The full study is morbidly fascinating and about 100 pages long, many of which are charts on reading trends. It seems that at every level reading is in decline.

In particular, I thought that the statistics on those who were college educated or above were frightening. The report also makes some general conclusions that the decline of reading skills will affect our democracy. This makes sense if you consider the fact that our government was designed based on the idea that the citizenry would be educated and actively engaged in the process. Sort of an ominous thought to consider…