I don’t currently own an e-reader (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.), but I expect I will someday. I like printed books, and I’ll have shelves upon shelves of them for as long as live, but I’m not opposed to the e-book revolution. I’m all for saving trees and decreasing the dust-collecting stuff in my life.

I’ve been learning about enhanced e-books and iPad apps, etc., and I have a question.

One of Darwin’s finches. Props to the first person who can tell me why I chose this image for this post.

Reading a book is different from, say, watching a movie. The brain is somehow more active when reading. Reading is cognitive exercise in a way that movies are not, and, thus, are in some way better for our brains.

Enhanced e-books are adding images, audio, and all sorts of other things to the text. Some enhanced e-books for kids include audio of the printed text, among other things.

My question is: At what point does the enhanced e-book become more like a movie than like a book in terms of cognitive exercise?

If we were to draw a linear scale showing the degree of cognitive exercise with movies on the left, audio books in the center, and books on the right, where might enhanced e-books fall?

Do we know what it is about books we have to keep when enhancing–or what we have to avoid–in order to not compromise the cognitive exercise?

Will enhanced e-books increase the level of cognitive exercise in a text, or will they decrease it?

Thoughts?