It's not a rare sight to see a string of people with bowed heads and fingers scrambling furiously over their cell phones. And we all know what they're doing - updating Facebook statuses, checking their email, uploading to Instagram.

Or are they?

It's said that a third of all cell phone users choose to read e-books on their phones. An impressive figure given the fact that over 90 percent of American adults have cellphones.

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And according to Clive Thompson, author of "Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better," IPhones and IPads alike are better suited for modern readers to peruse one of the oldest and most pleasurable past times around - reading.

And the advantages are obvious. In one tiny device you can get access to a seemingly limitless number of texts. No more heavy bags, no more sore shoulders, and no more putting yourself at risk for adult onset scoliosis. 

For people like Thompson, a married insomniac with kids, access to e-books has become an absolute necessity. When talking about his children in the book he mentions, "They wanted me to lie down next to them as they fell asleep, so id read in the dark next to them. They'd fall asleep and id go on reading for an hour."

The ability to read and not disturb his wife and children by putting on a light has been big for Thompson, and many like him. He's managed to read works like "War and Peace, "Moby Dick," "Paradise Lost" and so on.

Thompson maintains "There's no way I would have read these works of literature without having the phone."

According to Thompson, there's only one downside: you usually look like a jerk.

"I'm aware that people around me are probably thinking that I'm ignoring my kids to check my corporate email or play Angry Birds or something else culturally unvaluable. So I'm thinking of getting a T-shirt that says, 'Piss off: I'm reading 'War and Peace.'"