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Advantages and disadvantages of ebooks and paper books
Benefits and drawbacks of e books
Advantages and disadvantages of ebooks and paper books
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Digital media is on the rise, as computers and e-book readers are quickly replacing paper books and newspapers. Some thought this swing could only happen in a sci-fi movie. But is this shift, away from traditional paper books, really a good thing? People read books everyday around the globe, so this alteration has a large impact on most of the population. Since the creation of e-readers, more and more people have been converting to the technology-based side of reading. Although technology is slowly becoming more predominant, in this era we should not rely on it to always entertain and keep us occupied. This question is becoming more talked about in circles and is concerning. Are e-books the way of the future?
The e-book is quickly becoming the preference of readers around the globe. Many like it for its’ light-weight and others for its’ storage capacity, but is it really the library slayer that some have suggested? Some, such as Jeff Gomez agree. Written in his book, “Print is Dead: Books in our Digital Age”, Jeff points out that both a computer screen and a blank page have endless possibilities, but a paper can run out of space while a computer screen is simply scrolled. This is very true and one of the reasons that e-readers such as the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo are so successful. As the story is longer and more detailed, the book increases in size while the e-reader simply can have a larger memory card installed. Instead of having shelves and shelves of books, one can simply shrink their library onto one tiny device. This is a main selling point that most companies use to inform the buyer of this, some even boasting how big their internal memories are and how many books can be fit on it.
Another major sel...
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...oming back damaged. The e-readers now also come with a backlight built right into the system itself. This means that you can read in bed or in the dark without having to turn on a light source and risk waking up the person that you are in the same room with.
Works Cited
Darnton, Robert. The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2009. Print.
Gomez, Jeff. Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age. London: Macmillan, 2008. Print.
K., Kayte. "Print Books vs. E-books: What’s the Future of Reading?" SurveyMonkey Blog Print Books vs Ebooks Whats the Future of Reading Comments. N.p., 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Merkoski, Jason. Burning the Page: The Ebook Revolution and the Future of Reading. Illinois: Source, 2013. Print.
Piper, Andrew. Book Was There: Reading in Electronic times. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2012. Print.
Almost twenty years later, contemplating the contemporary American publishing scene, I feel a Bealean rage coming on (and with it a vague longing for one of his fits).While three percent of the American population in 1976 would have been a little over six million readers, recent surveys suggest that the consistent buyers of books in this country now total no more than half that number, and may even be as few as one million.[1]
In addition, textbooks are heavy to carry around and it takes longer to find a page. Likewise with digital textbooks they are compatible with tablets, smartphones, and laptops; it’s much easier to carry around and affordable price. However, some people may argue that digital textbooks can be a distraction for people because they would not bother read anymore. The author and poet Dana Gioia argues that electronics alternatives may be a bad influence that will lead society to not read anymore. Gioia complicates matters further when she writes, “While no single activity is responsible for the decline in reading, the cumulative presence and availability of electronic alternatives increasingly have drawn Americans away from reading” (161). I think Gioia is mistaken because she overlooks on electronics being a bad influence; but doesn’t see the benefits of electronics. To demonstrate, most of my textbooks are digital, which I can easily carry my tablet around where ever I go. Also, I save more money on digital textbooks and are simple to annotated the text. Journalist Ellen Lee interview a student from Liberty University, and he states that he prefers digital textbooks because he can tap his iPad, opens the digital copy and quickly open the page. Nevertheless, he also like digital textbooks because it has a feature that allows to highlight and mark the
Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...
King, Peter. A Textbook Case of Renting Books. The Wall Street Journal. April 23, 2009.
Books are less common today than they were in the past. Fewer people read for pleasure now that technology is present. One study that shows that today, less than half of seventeen year olds read for pleasure more than once or twice a year. However, sixty-four percent of teens of the same age said they read at least once per week in the year 1984 (Alter). This only goes to show that technology is taking up more of people’s time for reading and other activities that were popular in the past. Overall, books are not as popular now as they once were.
This source considers the issue of converting to digital books, specifically as it pertains to the effect that this change would have on the global environment. Although the research does recognize that there are disadvantages to not having a physical copy of a book and to abandoning certain platforms that do not transfer well to a digital form, overall, these researchers conclude that publishers should move towards digital products not only for the sake of cheaper long-run costs, but also for the good that going paperless can do for the environment. By displaying a series of graphs, as well as including multiple data sets, the text explains how e-books compare with printed texts; then, analysis of these facts is also included to show the reader the authors’ point.
First, he provides an overview of the history and development of the book as well as the development of reading. Carr analyzes and explains the effects of these developments on the individuals. Furthermore, he notes that the Internet recreates and alters a medium’s content by the use of hyperlinks, which ultimately distracts readers, and by separating the content into organized chunks. These characteristics make the content “searchable” which stimulates skimming behavior or superficial reading. As a result, readers retain less information due to the lack of deep, analytical reading. In addition, online texts often incorporate opinions, beliefs, or skewed viewpoints of certain topics, which can have negative effects on readers. Carr also addresses that some opponents believe that hardcopy reading was a result of “impoverished access” (111) and that the desire to use the fast paced web is a result of a quickening pace of life and work over the past few
Darnton, Robert. "The Library in the New Age." NYBooks.com. The New York Review of Books, June 12, 2008. Web. 6 March 2012.
There is no doubt, that literature has taken a back seat in the digital age. In a 2013 article for the Wall Street Journal, a top store executive for Barnes and Nobles revealed that the company expects to close twenty stores a year over the next decade. But Barnes and Nobles isn’t alone. Bookstore chains across the country are suffering the same losses. Consumers are choosing online book retailers like Amazon or opting out of reading altogether. These recent [trends?] are evident of a startling reality: people don’t read anymore.
Shen, F. (2002 September 24). Off the shelf; Who should decide what books you read? The Washington Post, pp.2. Retrieved December 2, 2002 from Lexis-Nexis/Academic database.
"As Costs of Textbooks Rise, E-books Emerge as More Affordable Alternative." The Daily Illini. Brittany Gibson, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
“While it is true that more books are sold today than ever, recent statistics show that only about 15% of books bought today are read. Evidently, they are of more use as furniture—coffee-table books—than as a source of information or aesthetic buzz. The statistics continue; of those that are read, less than 20% are read all the way through. The unfinished book symbolizes the state of attention spans today”. Eric McLuhan opens up his 2010 argument against technology with this quote. He seems to believe that literacy is only fully achieved through limited technology and hard copies of books. He fails to realize there is more to literacy that picking up a book defined as a ‘classic’ and reading it cover to cover. Literacy covers all spans of artistic
During the past few years, the publishing and reading world has been facing a veritable digital book onslaught. E-books have been outselling print books on Amazon since 2011 (Polanka, 7). While digital book sales skyrocketed, print book sales, especially those of mass marked paperbacks, diminished. Even the fact that e-books are not much cheaper than print books does not seem to interfere with the former’s popularity. It would seem that the age of print books is about to end, and quite soon.
However, I still want to stand on my opinion, I think e-book is better than printed book even more students prefer using printed books. I know using a e-book for long time may be harmful for people’s eyes, and the device may not support enough power for them to read books, but I more care about the advantages of e-book. An e-book is obviously cheaper than printed book, and it brings a lot of convenience into my study life. The most important thing is using an e-book is saving the earth resources. I believe that e-books will be more and more popular, and then replace using printed books in the
Getting educated is one of the most important things in life when it comes to getting a good future. By developing good knowledge of schooling, it helps establish and maintain new information as needed throughout the real world. As books are one the essential tools in learning, eBooks are being used in a everyday lifestyle. Traveling to get away places from city life, helps give reading a comforting feel. Students that use print books are eventually going to use ebooks in the future. By educating students with ebooks, it is more efficient than carrying textbooks; ebooks is more convenient and reliable to read, write and store notes. Print books are being replaced by eBooks, it helps on keeping files together and it makes notes