Beyond the iPad: why electronic ink is consolidated as an alternative to tablets

Technology ceases to be useful when it is the user who is accountable to it and not the other way around.

A study carried out by the Asurion service portal revealed that Americans consult the mobile screen in search of notifications an average of 352 times a day, or what is the same, once every 2 minutes and 43 seconds.

All nonsense in terms of productivity and time wasted consistently and irretrievably.

Why do we look at our mobile so often?

Beyond the logical concern to attend to a notification that may be important, what experts have called FOMO (for the acronym in English of fear of missing something) comes into play.

This syndrome responds to the inexhaustible feeling of missing something, by not paying attention to the mobile, but also to the need for a dose of dopamine when discovering that a photo on Instagram continues to receive

.

The new oasis: do away with notifications

Given this circumstance, trying to read a book in a relaxed way is a very ambitious mission, unless you have unbreakable willpower.

And what to say if the reading of the novel is on a tablet or, even worse, on the phone itself.

Some may think that putting the mobile on silent or in

mode will allow them to isolate themselves from notifications and focus on other activities.

Big mistake: a group of researchers from Penn State University has found that canceling notifications only makes things worse and the screen is consulted even more, just in case.

What to do then?

The only solution, as radical as it is effective, is to eliminate the possibility of receiving notifications.

Come on, the device, by design, does not have alerts.

An aberration in a society that is increasingly dependent on notifications, which even reach the wrists of its users through smart watches.

The Norwegian Magnus Wanberg experienced firsthand the tyranny of notifications while he was studying at university, to the point of making the decision to leave his cell phone and laptop at home and equip himself only with a notebook and a pen at university.

That decision, in the end, would change his life, since it was the seed that would later give life to reMarkable, a tablet with electronic ink that has sold more than a million units and is in its second version.

Wanberg dodged the harassment of notifications by going back to basics: a notepad and a pen, and basically this is what an e-ink tablet does, albeit with some interesting technological innovations that make them a category unto themselves:

Monocolor touch screen with

This type of screen very faithfully emulates the experience of paper, to the point that both the sound and the touch, when sliding the pen on the screen, are almost identical.

On the other hand, electronic ink technology allows minimal battery consumption, so its duration can be several days on a single charge.

Electronic book readers are the best reference for this technology, and their owners know that, unlike the screens of mobile phones and tablets, they can be read in direct sunlight.

Some devices that do not have notifications

But possibly the most outstanding aspect of this new category of products lies in the complete absence of interruptions derived from notifications.

Tablets with electronic ink are only used to make notes and read documents or electronic books;

there is no window to interrupt us and, of course, they lack social networks.

“A notification can generate a wide range of emotions and chemical reactions related to dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and cortisol.

Its effects can range from pleasure and excitement to stress and anxiety, and can even cause addiction," explains Ignacia Arruabarrena, associate professor at the Department of Social Psychology at the University of the Basque Country, to EL PAÍS.

“Repeated attention to notifications can generate a conditioning process that motivates an involuntary response, so that, even though the person is in the middle of something really important, they reach for their mobile when they know they have received a notification.

It is very difficult to ignore a notification, be it visual or auditory,” she concludes.

More information:

Three things that we do wrong with the mobile phone (and are useless)

Amazon fully enters that market

reMarkable has been leading the e-ink tablet market almost single-handedly, and the second iteration of its product has completely eliminated the initial drawbacks of the first model.

This sensational device offers a platform in which the user, through gestures and full integration with other devices, can manage their annotations.

The merit of this manufacturer lies in combining the simplicity of the product (a tablet with a pencil), with the possibilities of a powerful work tool.

The user has a palette of multiple tools to write or draw (pen, marker, pencils...);

You can cut, paste and move the drawings between the different notebooks and it has several templates on which to start a new project.

Thus, it can be used as a calendar, as a task agenda, or simply as a notepad with different designs.

Finally, cloud synchronization makes it easy for these notes to be shared with other users as PDFs.

reMarkable has seamlessly integrated the

feature of their mobile apps, so you can attach a notebook to virtually any app.

The Norwegian startup opened the ban on electronic ink notebooks, but it has been Amazon's recent entry into this market that has consolidated it.

Those of Jeff Bezos has broken into it with the versatile Kindle Scribe, a vitaminized e-book reader with a stylus and the ability to operate as a notepad.

The approach to the North American segment is curious, since, starting from the same hardware, they offer the user added value to what is really their forte: the Kindle book library.

The Kindle Scribe plays its tricks skillfully: on the one hand, it is the largest electronic book reader in the home (and, as we pointed out, with access to the huge Kindle library), but on the other, it incorporates a function called "Notebook ”, which is where the market for reMarkable is scratching hard.

Amazon's entry into the electronic notebook segment confirms that there is life beyond conventional tablets, although there is still a long way to go in terms of the platform.

Thus, reMarkable has an operating system full of functions and already proven in the market, while Amazon initially offers a much less complete platform.

Although it is expected that the Scribe will incorporate functions in successive versions until it comes face to face with the Norwegian device.

On the other hand, Scribe has a strong ace up its sleeve: a backlit screen that makes it possible to use it without the need for outside light, something that reMarkable lacks.

Electronic ink tablets represent an interesting return to basics and functionality, and an escape from the oversaturation of stimuli from social networks and other notifications in which the user loses most of their time.

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