How To Turn Off Kindle's "Popular Highlights" Function

NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu is upset that passages on his Kindle ebook reader are, all of a sudden, turning up pre-highlighted:

"I'm reading a new book I downloaded on my Kindle and I noticed an underlined passage. It is surely a mistake, I think. This is a new book. I don't know about you, but I always hated underlined passages in used books.... And then I discovered that the horror doesn't stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who's defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station..." (listen to the full 3 minute broadcast, read the transcript)

I'm with him, I too would be mightily irritated to have spent hundreds of dollars on an ebook reader and more on books to read on it, to find that said books came with pre-underlined passages. Or worse - while I'm reading, a newly underlined passage could just appear like that, as if someone has lolloped onto my lap and scribbled a note on the book as I'm holding it!

The good news is that it is possible to turn off the "Popular Highlights" feature. The bad news is that, according to the Kindle community forum, there's a fair amount of confusion about how to do so, not least because when the "Popular Highlights" option says "Off" it actually means "On," and vice versa!

Anyhow, thanks to the nice folks at GalleyCat here's how to turn off this feature if it's getting on your nerves...

How To Turn Off Popular Highlights on the Kindle
1. Press the "Home" button to return to your Home screen.
2. Press the Menu button.
3. Select "Settings" on the menu.
4. Select "off" for the Popular Highlights setting.

How To Turn Off Popular Highlights on the Kindle iPhone or iPad App
1. Press the "Home" button to return to your Home screen.
2. Press the "i" button at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
3. Select "off" for the Popular Highlights setting.

Note that if the menu shows the setting as "On" that means the "Popular Highlights" function is actually off; conversely, if the menu displays "Off" the function is on. Although this sounds like Alice in Wonderland style logic, it's in line with many electronic menus where the display options don't display the settings you currently have, but what the setting will be if you click the button.

Please also note that these instructions do not apply to printed books where a simple pencil ("On") and eraser ("Off") will do the job quite satisfactorily.

-- Davina, BookBrowse Editor