A few weeks ago, I flew from Washington, D.C., to Lexington. I tried to pack light to avoid checking any bags (my particular airline charges $30 per bag).

So of course, I decided to bring along my brand new Amazon Kindle to avoid having to fill my carry-on with a large book.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Amazon Kindle, it is an e-reader created by Amazon.com. It is thin and light-weight, can store hundreds of books on the device and can keep more on Amazon’s servers.

The reason why I like my Kindle so much is not the numerous and cheap e-books I can buy from Kindle (although that is definitely a plus). The ability to buy my books anywhere in the world over a cell tower connection is wonderful, too, but there’s more. I love the Kindle’s e-ink display.

While many people will tout the iPad as the future of books, I think the Kindle is superior for your everyday books.  Why? Because the e-ink technology replicates the look of a real book. The iPad has a bright LED screen that will leave you with a headache after a while (don’t get me wrong, I still want an iPad).

The way that the e-ink display works is by aligning ink particles to form the words on each page. Every time you click next page, the Kindle shoots a blast of electricity to reorient the particles to form the words on the next page. That means that, with the wireless functionality turned off, the Kindle’s batteries will last for more than two weeks. That’s a lot of reading time.

This brings me to my point: airline safety regulations (were you expecting that?). I understand the need to go over the safety procedure before each flight (I know that my seat can be used as a flotation device and that the nearest exit may be behind me). I even understand the need to turn off laptops and such on take-off. But before the plane took off, the stewardess told me to turn off my Kindle.

I tried to explain to her that the wireless was off and that the device used such little electricity that there was virtually no possible way for it to interfere with the plane. She wasn’t convinced and off my Kindle went. The lady sitting beside me, who was reading a book herself, asked me who had the better book now.

It is the year 2010; the technology used in airplanes should be able to withstand the small electrical charge of an e-book. If our planes are really that vulnerable, then the TSA needs to expand its banned items list.

The fact is an e-book is not going to impede the take-off or landing of an airplane, big or small. An iPod is not going to distort any instruments in the cockpit. The iPhone and many other cell phones even have an “airplane mode” that turns off all transmission capabilities. “Mythbusters,” a popular show on the Discovery Channel, even showed that most (if not all) airplanes are shielded from rogue electronic transmissions.

Sure, some may argue that these things are distracting and could cause issues if there were an emergency, but if the person sitting next to me can be fully engrossed in the latest Dan Brown novel, I should be able to read the same on my Kindle. The airlines need to update their safety protocols to reflect a more modern, technological society.