Technology has entered every aspect of our lives and has a huge effect in transforming the every way we spend our daily lives. For booklovers, the change has been possibly the most great and revolutionary. Gone are the days when you actually need to spend a lot of money in buying books or rush to libraries to lookup them, eBooks have revolutionised the way books are read, circulated and handled. But the habits of the past die very hard. Real books continue to play a very big role in our lives. It is perhaps time to judge the pros and cons of the eBooks and real books and find out a common point of contact between the two.
Portability-let we all agree to the fact that eBooks score high on portability. One can carry maximum 2-3 book sin the backpack and that also might be a painful business. EBooks have changed the way how we carry books. Millions of books can be carried in little electronic devices. No wonder e books are used by students in increasing number these days because that saves young backs from the burden of heavy books.
Pocket friendly-Due to their minimal or no pricing, eBooks have also transformed book reading from an expensive hobby to something affordable to all. We do not subscribe to piracy but prices of actual eBooks are much lower that their real counterparts. A customary search through any online site where one can buy both an e copy and a real copy can understand the difference. EBooks incur no costs of paper or ink or printing and this helps to lower the price.
Go green-Let’s all accept the fact that eBooks use no paper and thus reading eBooks can also be your way to contributing to the cause of environment. Using real textbooks which have a limited life causes the usage of more trees for the production of paper. EBooks reduce the possibility.
The actual feel– But real books are still loved to us due to their actual materiality. We would still love to touch and feel the book e is reading, smell its fresh pages. EBooks cannot ever compete to real books in this respect. Also no one can deny the nostalgia of old borrowed library books with notes at the margins or scribbling by other people. One would certainly miss out on such cultural implications of books in an online book
Nostalgia-As we know, books have other cultural functions other that their actual function of reading. People keep love letters and flowers in books, real books are considered a valuable and dignified gift. All of us would be impressed by the sight of a beautiful well stocked actual library. One might possess the exact same collection is his phone or tab, but the actual impact of a real library is something that eBooks would fail to recreate.
Easier learning-EBooks are definitely most useful tool for educational purposes. As they are multimedia they make the process of learning easier and simpler. From a hyperlink in the eBook one can immediately look up facts and explore further on the subject just by the click of a button. Also eBooks can be marked and referenced very easily and thus they make the entire process very efficient
The debate can go on and on. As booklovers, I think that we should embrace both the technologies because both of them have their own instrinctic features. Both have their pros and cons and one must use both of them to optimize their reading experience.
