I was under the weather yesterday. So much so that I even stayed home from work and slept until about the middle of the afternoon. I then felt well enough to read a bit and since I was close to being done with My Brilliant Career, I retrieved my Kindle from my work bag and finished it. Wonderful! But more on that in a later post. This morning I went to work and began reading Dava Sobel’s A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos.
An observation. Kindle has the option to view the highlights other readers have made within the book on my Kindle while I am reading. I have this feature turned on because I find it fascinating to see what other people thought interesting and worth noting while they read. About the time I was reading Bleak House on my Kindle last summer I began to notice that people tend to highlight the same passages. Was this just because the passages were recognized as important by multiple readers? Or was there something else going on?
I’ve kept my observing eye open over the months, and it just seemed more and more bizarre that I would run across passages that indicated “highlighted by four Kindle users” or five or six but never just “one.” So I began to wonder, do people reading on their Kindle with the view other reader’s highlights turned on tend to underline a passage because someone else has already done so? Does a reader think, a couple other people thought this passage was important so I should underline it too?
I decided no, it was just coincidence. Until today. As I was reading a A More Perfect Heaven this morning I again noticed that the same passages were highlighted by multiple people. I dismissed it as coincidence until I reached this passage:
equant—in effect a second axis of rotation, off-center from the true axis.
This half, out of context, nonsensical incomplete sentence was highlighted by six Kindle users. Six! Since I read this today I know the context, but by next week or by the time I finish the book, if I saw that in my highlights I would have no idea what it was talking about. Why would six people highlight this?
The only thing I can think of to explain it is that one person highlighted it and then the next person thought they should highlight it too and then because two people highlighted it the third person thought it should be highlighted, and so on until it has accumulated six highlights. For the record, I did not highlight it.
No longer am I able to excuse as coincidence the tendency for the same passages to be highlighted by so many people. I find this sheep-like behavior in highlighting to be a bit disturbing. I would expect some overlap between readers but nothing this consistent. Does it stem from lazy reading? Or maybe a certain lack of reading confidence? Or perhaps people are afraid of looking stupid by highlighting the “wrong” passages so highlight the same ones others before them have?
When I read on my Kindle I highlight a lot, much more than I would if I were reading a print book. I do this because I can’t page back through my Kindle when I am done looking for a passage that was on the left hand side of the page near the bottom about a quarter of the way through the book somewhere in chapter four or five. So if there is a fact or interesting tidbit I think I might want to know for later when I am blogging about the book I highlight it. As a result, the number of highlights for A More Perfect Heaven has already grown since I began reading it and a good many of my highlights have not been highlighted by others. I plan to keep an eye on the highlights for this book to see if people who read it after me begin highlighting any of my highlights. I’ll let you know if there are any interesting observations to be made.
To learn about other people’s highlights or underlined passages, you really need to do a “blind” study where each person reads the book independently of other readers.
I have done two or three such comparisons with the same volume and I’ve found that the number of passages highlighted or underlined by BOTH readers is practically zero!
A question, Stephanie: Do you copy your highlights and then add them to your commonplace book?
If only you could see their notes.
I ended up turning off highlights on my kindle, I found them a bit distracting.
I can’t comment on kindle highlighting, but i always enjoyed reading the comments in the margins of secondary criticism books from the college library. Years of bored students had had ongoing arguments in the comments and they ranged from the stupid and banal to the clever and hilarious. What I can promise you is that they never agreed with one another!
Highlight sharing creeps me out to be honest – everyone can see everything, ick. And it’s not surprising that prompts people to be hyper aware of how what they highlight reflects them back to other readers. Is there any way to opt out of having your highlights viewable by other poeple?
Sorry to hear you’ve been under the weather, but glad you’re picking up and enjoying the Dava Sobel.
Richard, we’ll call this informal observation
I would suspect two independent readers would not highlight very many of the same passages and your own study proves it. That’s why it is so odd to see that everyone highlights the same things. Perhaps you can do a behavioral study on that for me? I don’t copy my highlights into my commonplace book since they are saved online already and searchable (if in a limited way). The passages I find most interesting usually end up in a blog post. I am too lazy to do anything else with them at this point in time.
Carrie, if they make them public I can but I’m not sure I’d want to! but then my notes aren’t all that brilliant when I make them so it would be hard to laugh at others on that score
bibliopirate, I thought I would find the highlights distracting too and was fully prepared to turn them off but for some reason I find myself more fascinated by them than annoyed.
Litlove, see, I was hoping sharing highlights and notes on Kindle would be like the marginalia in your college library’s books but on that score it has been disappointing. I guess most general readers just don’t engage with their reading like college students do which makes me kind of sad in some respects.
Jodie, you can keep your notes and highlights private and you have the option to not see other people’s either. I was a little weireded out by the idea of sharing my highlights at first but I blog about the books and talk about my personal experience with them and I like secondhand books others have marked in so I gradually got over the weirdness of it. And even though the Kindle says how many people have highlighted a passage is doesn’t say their names so it isn’t quite as public as it first seems. and thanks for the well wishes. I’m feeling about 95% so almost back to normal
I love reading second-hand books (or books that belonged to my husband when he was teaching) that have been highlighted or have comments in the margins, and this sounds like a good feature on the Kindle, but, I, too, would be a bit disappointed to find that people are just copying each other when it comes to highlighting. I can see, maybe, if it’s a book someone is reading for a class, and they highlight a passage to be able to ask a teacher or professor why someone else might have highlighted it, but it seems cases of that would be very rare.
I’m with you – seeing that multiple people have highlighted the same passages has weirded me out. I start to feel like a rebel when I’m tempted to highlight something else.
I found your post while searching for an answer – does Amazon ONLY show highlighted passages that have been selected by more than one reader? I’ve never come across that stated only one user had selected it.
I chose to highlight errors in a book that I want to point out to the author. Now I’m not sure this method will work (and the next step in my obsessive compulsion is to have my mother buy the book and highlight her copy. Stop the madness!)
I love getting used books and seeing other people’s highlights too. Even better if there are notes written in the margins! Fascinating!
I hope you’re feeling better!
A strange phenomenon! I went through an odd phase of erasing people’s comments and underlinings from library books (if they were in pencil). I was just so cross that people were writing in books that weren’t their own. I’ve moved on now.
There’s always the possibility that the technology is running amok. I find suspicious that you report no passages that just one reader has marked. Perhaps when one person marks a passage, the system automatically multiplies it.
Some people highlight new words–could that be a reason for highlighting that particular sentence?
I wonder if the system doesn’t notify for just one highlighting… does Amazon provide any data or FAQs on the highlighting technology?
One thing I noticed about the Kindle highlighting was in my copy of Little Women-the first half of the book had dozens of passages that had been highlighted by many people, but absolutely none in the second half. Did most people not finish the book? It was very strange.
I hope you feel better!
Fascinating post Stefanie. Until you came to your weird example, I was thinking that most of the highlighting I’ve seen – eg in Castle of Otranto and P&P have tended to be the obvious ones so it didn’t really surprise me. I tend to highlight a lot more for the reasons you give. That strange example has given me pause.
As for never seeing one highlight, I was thinking the same as Michelle ie that they only notify when it gets to a certain number – you know like 3 highlights suggests some sort of critical mass?
I thought they’d bother me too, but like you I find it interesting (mostly) though occasionally they give me pause. Should I highlight this too? Why did those people not highlight more of the para? Etc.
Nook doesn’t have this feature though you can highlight passages and sometimes I do (for the same reason of not being able to flip back easily). Do the passages other people highlight show up that was as you are reading? It could be interesting, but it might also distract me. I’ve been reading Emma on my Nook by the way–at the gym–it’s really nice not having to hold on to a book since I’ve been using the elliptical machine and need to hold on for dear life!
(I know you wanted to know that last tidbit).
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Emily, turns out Amazon only displays “popular” highlights which means at least three people had to highlight the same thing. It’s still interesting but sort of promotes a crowd mentality in a way.
Liz, I did some further research and Amazon only shows passages that have been highlighted at least three times. Still, when I see them I can’t help but feel rebellious too
wherethereisjoy, I love margin notes! I wish I were better at making them myself but half the books I read are from the library and making notes in those is a no-no. Still, I should practice more in the books I do own. And thanks, I am all better now
Ophelia, I used to be annoyed when people wrote in library books but not so much anymore. Sometimes I wish I were that daring!
Jane, did some research and found out Amazon only displays passages that have been highlighted three or more times so that explains a few things at least.
jenclair, it could be. I hadn’t thought of that.
Michelle, apparently the magic number for highlights is three. I’ve noticed that there tend to be fewer highlights toward the end of books than at the beginning. I hope it isn’t because people aren’t finishing them. Maybe it’s because they get so wrapped up in the story they forget to make highlights?
Helen, thanks! I’m all better now
whisperinggums, you are right about three being the critical mass! We have the same thought process when coming upon highlights
Danielle, the highlights aren’t really intrusive, at least I don’t think so. They appear as a dotted line beneath the text along with, in tiny letters, the number of readers who highlighted the passage. It’s enough to notice but it doesn’t really get in the way. hands-free reading of Emma at the gym sounds like fun to me!
This also freaks me out. But you think six is a lot?? I’m looking at page 151 of Kindle version of The Hunger Games and one section has been highlighted by 207 users!!!!!! That’s just madness.
And another thing. What if someone’s highlighted section doesn’t overlap 100%? Maybe one word fewer or something. How does Amazon take that into account? The whole thing is bizarre!