Do You Still Shop at the Bookstore? [POLL]

I am a certified device-head, a psuedo tech geek, and am in love with any tecnology that enhances my life or makes it easier. I have a bit of an excuse for being as into as it as I am--I work with some folks that have helped me turn a series of kids books that I created into apps and ebooks. As we developed the Green Radventures kids book app series, the company supplied me with an iPad so that I could direct the programming of my creation into a fully interactive app.

This brought me deeper and deeper into the world of tablets, apps, operating systems, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe and Apple. However, what originally brought me into it was literature. My love for reading and writing was the real catalyst. The investors in the company wanted to create the apps because they liked the books, and today, I found myself in a place that I hadn't been since I first got an iPad--the bookstore.

I don't buy many physical books anymore for a few reasons. First, I like having my whole library in my tablet. Every book I have comes with me. That's pretty awesome.

Second, it's nice to know that trees aren't being milled to print words for me to read. The amount of paper that I need to use compared to my pre-tablet life is negligible.

There are other factors that are nice, like tapping a word for its definition, marking notes without a highlighter, and how cool it looks, but as I wandered through the aisles of the bookstore, I realized I had missed the process of finding, or not finding, a book on a trip to the bookstore.

A tablet connected to the internet has access to almost every idea ever thought. In the bookstore, each title represents a true examination of a single idea or set of ideas. Every physical book is separate and can be completely different from the one right next to it.

All of the books in the bookstore are hollering for my attention, and the signs over the sections, my feet, and my eyes are the search engine. Instead of clicking, I reach. Instead of scrolling, I turn the page. Titles are key, because there is no summary on the spine of the book.

Each individual book also represents lifetimes of work, development, study, and toil. The souls of the authors are found on those pages.

All of the books in the bookstore are hollering for my attention, and the signs over the sections, my feet, and my eyes are the search engine. Instead of clicking, I reach. Instead of scrolling, I turn the page. Titles are key, because there is no summary on the spine of the book.

I felt a sensation in the bookstore that I had forgotten I loved. I went in looking for something   very specific and ended up daydreaming about research I would do to really complete that passion project of mine. It was just after Christmas, so they might have been busier than normal, but I was pleased to see that it was crowded.

Then, like so many trips to the bookstore in my life, I didn't buy anything. They didn't have the title I was looking for, and as much as I was happy to be nostalgic about times gone by, nothing I held in my hand screamed to me to buy it. So, I walked out, happy to see that the part of me that loved spending time shopping for actual books was still around, even though I hadn't seen him in a while.