E-books: The Future?

544 Words2 Pages

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.

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