One of the unique features with Kindle ebooks that’s not available on other platforms is the ability to view passages that are most often highlighted by other Kindle users. The feature is called Popular Highlights.
On Kindle ereaders, you can turn popular highlights on and off from the font adjustment menu while reading. The setting is located halfway down the “More” page.
When enabled, you’ll see dotted lines under highlighted sections with a number showing how many times it’s been highlighted by other users.
You can also view popular highlights from the “popular” tab on the Notes & Highlights page, but it only shows a few and sometimes it doesn’t show any at all even if the book has some.
You can see how many popular highlights a book has from the “About This Book” popup, accessible from the top menu bar while reading.
I’ve noticed that Amazon has recently started showing popular highlights on product pages for some Kindle ebooks too. They have cards you can scroll through to read highlighted sections, and it shows how many times the section has been highlighted.
Personally, I don’t like “popular highlights” and always keep them turned off. What do I care what other people think is worthy of highlighting? Seeing popular highlights just takes my mind away from the natural flow of the book.
To me it makes more sense to have a separate section where you can view all the popular highlights at once, instead of just having to come across them while reading. There’s a tab for “popular” on the Notes & Highlights section but it only shows a few highlighted sections, not all, so I fail to see how it’s useful.
What about you? Do you like the popular highlights feature? Do you keep them turned on all the time or do you prefer to read with popular highlights turned off?
No, I don’t really care for them, they break me out of my suspension of disbelief. I usually forget to turn them off though.
Yes…I like them. I like seeing what a majority of people think is interesting. Particularly in non fiction… But, fiction as well.
Love them. Gives me chance to think deeper as I read.
I totally agree, so I set the default settings to off for popular highlights as well as public notes.
I’ve never tried them, but it sounds very distracting.
Nope. Always the first thing I turn off when I get a new Kindle e-reader/set-up the Kindle app on a new device, and then never think about it again
No, I don’t. Like Max, I turn them off when setting up a new device. I don’t even know WHY anyone would care what others mark up. (Maybe the authors.)
I enjoy it. It’s fun to see especially since it’s typically not very obvious or in your face but you notice it when you’re reading and you think a passage is interesting and notice it was highlighted or noticed by others too. Pretty cool feature imo!
I agree. I didn’t realize that so many people hated this feature. It’s almost like a sense of community, while reading.
No, I find it very distracting.
No, they are distracting and annoying. And frankly, nobody cares what I highlight or make notes about so why should I care about theirs.
I find it entertaining and sometimes agree when a particular sentence or two is highlighted. While reading Christian fiction other readers highlight passages that are important and calls my attention to it.
I’m glad Amazon has this feature and I leave it on all the time.
I know I’m in the minority and I accept that folks.
Nope, it’s distracting. I’m just not interested in communal commentary, asides, or book club get-togethers.
I sort of like it. I don’t really notice it while reading, but if I highlight something and it’s already highlighted I will look at the number of highlights and highlight it myself. Otherwise I don’t pay much attention to it.
Turning off popular highlights is essential.
No.I do not like nor need to see what other readers have highlighted. Highlights are distracting so I never turn them on.
Don’t use them, the very thought of them sounds ridiculous. Why on earth would I care what other people have highlighted? Nope. That’s a non-starter for me.
I have them turned on and they never bother me. Once in awhile I pay attention to them, but mostly their just ‘there’ and I ignore them.
Yes, I love seeing the key passages that other readers have highlighted and often tack them on to my own. It’s an essential feature I hope never goes away! BTW, if you’re a Goodreads user, your highlights are saved to the website and accessible anytime, even if you don’t own the book (great for revisiting library reads). Another super feature!
I like them and leave them on. It’s interesting to see what people find important/interesting. This fascinates me because I’m not big a highlighter. I rarely ever do it.
I have this turned on. I do not see this as distraction while reading and sometimes it might be interesting. However, I am a little surprised to see that majority of readers (at least commentators on this blog) find this annoying.
I don’t think it’s important to me what others think of what I’m reading or even a paragraph or any section or chapter, When I read a book I sure would hate to have things highlighted it would be a shame and it’s not important what others think.,..
To me it’s a distraction, and I turn it off.
Is there a way to keep Kindle from noting which passages I highlight so that this information isn’t shared with other Kindle users? I find it creepy that other people can see what passages I find important enough to highlight, even though nobody has the ability to identify the people who make the highlights.
Agreed! I hate that Amazon takes our personal information and forcibly puts it into other people’s hands. But I am too far down the ebook rabbit hole to go back to physical books at this point.
I dislike Popular Highlights intensely. If I want to highlight a particular passage because it means something to me, then I would want it to remain private. And I really don’t care to see what other people have found to be interesting.
The main reason for this dislike is when coming across a… private, sexy scene, I discover that other people have read this before me. Instead of being ‘in the moment’, it makes me feel squirmy, as though all these other people are watching me read this particular part of the book. Just no.
And the unfortunate thing is that I am unable to turn this feature off due to some bug in the Kindle app. I am stuck with these abominable highlights.