I'm unsure... E-readers are wonderfully convenient to store multiple novels, but my experience is the same as in your previous post, even for novels. I tend to read non-sequentially -- going backwards and forwards in novels, re-reading previous chapters, going back a bit to re-read a paragraph I liked -- and e-readers are simply not good for that. Printed books are way better. I tend to remember what I read in paper books better than ebooks, exactly what you described for academic papers!
Is it? I don't mean "reading randomly, out of order" nor do I mean skipping to the end to read spoilers (though some people, puzzingly, do just that). I mean randomly reading parts I've already read. I assume a lot of people's reading habits are similar to mine.
I don't do that and have never heard of someone doing that. I have heard of people re-reading a chapter they just finished, because they enjoyed it so much or because they felt they missed something. I've heard of people opening a favorite novel to a random page, reading for a bit, then closing it.
The only non-sequential access I ever do in novels is for reference material, things like maps, character lists (e.g. Game of Thrones), or glossaries (e.g. Clockwork Orange). Footnotes on paper are sequential-ish, I read the Three Body Problem novels on a Kindle where you tap on a footnote number to get the text in a separate window and there's close or back button to return to the original page. I heard at least one David Foster Wallace novel had some insanely long footnotes that went on for multiple pages and maybe footnotes within footnotes, I don't know how that works on paper or an e-reader in terms of navigation.
Yea, I love using ebooks for light or SF novels. As well as journalist-y nonfiction (especially ones structured as the story of the writer learning that subject and consisting mostly of vignettes talking with experts). Basically anything I'll just blow through and never look at again.
I never use ebooks for most of what I like to read though. Or cookbooks!
I wonder if it will be the same for my daughter :)