Exploratory Essay

786 Words2 Pages

Throughout the past centuries, society has utilized books for academic purposes which has impacted their lives in numerous positive ways. Traditionally, reading has been a private, isolated activity, like a one-way conversation between the author and the reader. However, the digital revolution is transforming reading into a social activity that can be shared with family, friends, and even strangers. Ebooks are encouraging the shift from printed content to digital one. There are ebooks that cost less than a dollar and they are generally cheaper than their printed colleagues. Not only are ebooks affordable and can be used with small and portable electronic devices, which makes them preferable for traveling, but they can also help to improve one’s …show more content…

Who wants to spend more money paying for the exact same product? According to Derrico, “readers now understand there are no print costs with e-books and can see the new book tax for what it is” (2010). It is natural that reading digital text would be embraced by the contemporary society that is so dependent on new technologies. Sharing, collaboration and portability have turned out to be primary components of the present day world, so this boost in popularity of ebooks comes as no surprise (Reid 3). In fact, ebooks have even impacted my life, particularly as a teenager, when they got to be well known in Paraguay. For me, as an international student and chess player, travel has become a necessity. Thus, ebooks portability has become a crucial component of my studies during long voyages. In my academic career, ebooks have helped me by giving instantaneous access to information about math and physics that was not available for me in printed frame. Some people say that ebooks will soon surpass their printed …show more content…

In Flood’s article, Czeisler’s research suggests that reading ebooks can distort the sleeping patterns of the person because of the light emitted by the screen (2014). Moreover, some people have repeatedly complained that reading ebooks hurt their eyes, but recent technology from Apple has incorporated a night shift mode that minimizes these negative effects. Lynda Salmon’s research expresses a disadvantage of ebooks which tend to make the reader have “a more passive approach to understanding the story and fail to use personal decoding skills or context clues when introduced to unfamiliar words” (2013).
However, students have an advantage of having immediate access to interactive dictionaries in their electronic devices which, sometimes, can avoid the back pain from carrying a ton of “bricks”. Also, in his research, Marquis states that “those age 16 and older who own tablets or e-book reading devices are more likely than others to read for every reason: for pleasure, for personal research, for current events, and for work or school” (2013). Ebooks are accessible to everyone at any time; furthermore, ebooks now allow us to highlight sentences and look up words as we are

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