What's your opinion on ebooks, and the transition from physical to digital?
Physical books will probably always be here, and I much prefer the tangible nature of them and the fact that I can flip the pages, and have other sensory responses to the book.
I got a kindle for my birthday two years ago... I couldn't do it. I love physical books too much. I made the transition fairly easily with music and movies; but I can't do it with books. I don't know if this puts me on the wrong side of history or not, but with e-books I just don't read as quickly or with as much enjoyment as with a real book. Maybe that will change. I love reading articles and blogs online, so maybe after years of it I'll eventually transition. But for now I can't help but continue my physical book collection.
I love how she speaks with such love and admiration for books. It definitely is. And this ability to be so connected with print is what makes up the majority of why I love print as opposed to digital. Too true. It seems that as we "progress" technologically, we are just distancing ourselves more and more from the natural world and the shift towards digital media is just continuing this trend. And aren't the pleasantries with fellow humans what makes life worth living? What makes one day different from the next? What makes us us and others themselves?
I don't want to live in a world where I could go a day without physically in the presence of another.Hard copy is a full-on sensory experience.
Paper, because it is real, provides an organic connection to our natural world: The tree from whence the paper came; the sun, water and soil that nourished the tree. By contrast, a digital device is alien, man-made, hard and cold to human flesh.
Everything at the click of a button has made it less likely that we’ll take the trouble to exchange pleasantries with a fellow human.
I think she makes a lot of valid points in the article but it bothers me when people claim that you can't get the same level of connection with a book if you read a digital copy. Perhaps that's how it is for her (and I'm sure lots of other people) but I don't think it's right to make a blanket statement like that. I read on my kindle and books in print because I enjoy both, but I don't feel like I'm missing out if I read a digital copy. I think it's also important to note that digital print makes information much more accessible. I used to live in a place where I couldn't just go buy a book and the kindle was an absolute revelation when I got it.
Oh my gosh. Hardcover books are the best. That feeling of carefully sliding some massive tome off of your shelf is divine. Too bad I don't own any... I sincerely hope that physical books are able to stay around. I like the idea of physically possessing the words and thoughts and knowledge and prose that came from someone's imagination. It's simply unreal.
Yeah definitely. Physical books are really the only way to secure that those thoughts stay with us.
It's one of the things that has to go really. Now, hold on, don't call me a monster just yet. I love the real books, the one with the fresh paper smell, brown pages due to age and leather covers (I love leather covers). But due to unavailability and price it's hard to obtain everything you read physically. It takes 10 minutes to get a free digital book, and it takes several days to find if book stores in your town have what you need then spend some time on amazon or ebay looking to buy it online, then wait for delivery. I'd absolutely love for physical books to be just as easy to find as digital were, but it's impossible. That's why this will go out in the history.
Like a couple of others here, I gave the Kindle a spin, and I prefer not to. I will probably consider it for flights, but when I can get the print book, I will. I recently read Churchill's The Gathering Storm, which is the first in a 5 part series on WWII. I have found all but the second book at used bookstores, and I haven't even considered reading it on the Kindle instead. It simply isn't as enjoyable. Also, I feel like I am getting ripped off paying so much for a digital copy that I can't loan to a friend. IMO we often can't tell the difference between what is possible, and what we want. ebooks have a lot of advantages. But, it doesn't mean that their disadvantages aren't real, or that you are a luddite for deciding that they are a deal-breaker.
I'm not very sentimental about books, unlike other commentors in this thread. I don't really care about the smell, the feel of the pages, etc. To me the book is the same however I'm reading it, and I have to say my Kindle is incredibly convenient, and has made my bus journeys a hundred times more enjoyable. Despite this, I don't think e-readers spell the end of print books. There's a difference between magazines like Newsweek and books. Magazines and newspapers are quickly consumed, and easily discarded, so of course people are going to prefer an easier way to consume and discard them. Books take some time to consume, and for the moment it's still cheaper to buy a paperback and carry it with you than to buy a kindle and a paperback. Additionally, the issue of convenience comes up. Sure, a Kindle can put your entire library in your pocket, but it also runs out of batteries. You can't take notes (easily/quickly) on a Kindle - my copy of Catch-22 is covered with scribbles in margins. I don't understand why it has to be a battle between the digital and physical. People are always pooh-poohing newfangled technology that defeats the essence of books, or old fashioned ideas that are inefficient and outdated. Both mediums have their uses, and I don't see print going out of use anytime soon.
Indeed, books themselves were a radical innovation and departure from scrolls. The binding was a major technological breakthrough that allowed massively larger amounts of information to be stored and referenced much more easily. Because scrolls had to be spread out and rolled up as you moved back and forth through them, info retrieval was laborious, and texts were often broken down into collections of scrolls for brevity to mitigate this. Once that happens, things like losing them gets easier. Books pretty much brought as much content as you wished in one unit, with the ability to access any portion of the content with comparatively lightning speed. Ereaders are just another innovation in a long line of innovations for consuming the written word. I find they offer several advantages over paper, as well as some disadvantages of course. But I find I'm reading more now than ever because of them, and have access to worlds of context that I didn't before when reading various volumes.
I've spent a year now with my kindle fire and I have to say, it's just not for me. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a great tablet and is nice for taking a lot of reading material to places where it would otherwise be unreasonable, but the feeling just isn't there. I realize I might be being a bit sentimental but I get attached to my books. Each one has memories and it's just not the same with a digital file on a computer screen. Another thing is that nothing beats looking at your bookshelf and knowing that, as long as you take care of them, those books will be with you for a very long time. Your favorite books could last so long that your children, or even your grandchildren, could pick them up.