Seeking Company in Books

On salon.com, Bob Stein brings up an interesting idea about the ideal future of books. To him, the utopia for the future of books is as follows:

"I've become interested in how context informs the reading experience, whereas a few years ago I was more focused on content. I'm interested by how context comes from different places, how it is shaped by different factors. During the Golden Notebook Project [a late 2008 "experiment in close-reading" that featured an ongoing conversation between seven readers that took place in the margins of the novel] I learned a huge amount just watching them read and debate the text. You can bring in various different glosses on a document. It is a richer experience with these different framing devices readily available, being able to see multiple perspectives and points of view at once. In the digital era context is what matters."

Reading a book is no longer only a solo adventure, a time for solitary reflection. Now, the discussion of a book, which we used to only associate with classrooms and book clubs can become an immediate part of a reading experience. However, I don't believe that this can work nicely with any genre. It would be pretty easy to work with fiction, because the beauty of fiction is that it's open to interpretation. Even in non-fiction, perspectives of different people can enrich self-help books, especially when that particular self-help book is about exploring one's personal experiences. (This probably comes up a lot in healing books). If different people shared their own difficulties right at the margin of the book's pages, the content of the book would probably become more inspiring. In other words, the context will enrich the content. However, I don't really see this "perspectives" thing working too smoothly in business books, maybe because business books tend to give solutions or methods that the reader should follow.

Regardless of whether the development of this new context will work or not, it seems like people have the tendency to want to discuss things and share their opinions. No wonder blogs and forums are so popular, right? I see this tendency as another attempt to create a community with other people who are interested in the same thing as yourself, or at least sharing the same experience as you at that moment in time (that is, the experience of reading that same book). More and more, people are losing the ability to do things alone. They feel awkward if they are alone, or at least more secure with other people. I am sure such feeling is not a new, modern phenomenon or anything, because people are anthropologically gregarious creatures.  But, I ask this, are we getting more gregarious, or are we simply getting more lonely so we find ourselves seeking company?