E-books Are Better Than Paper Books.
For many centuries, reading has been a significant part of human life. People have always read as a means of studying, relaxing, working, and learning some valuable information that can be applied in everyday life. For the longest part of that period, books have existed only in paper form. However, with today’s technological advancement, e-publishing has enabled people to read material using devices like smartphones or computers.(1) The majority of people who read e-books are young, but nowadays, even the elderly embrace e-books over print books due to their ease of carrying, availability and low price.
Firstly, e-books are easier to carry than paper books. E-book readers allow people to take large libraries with them wherever they go because e-books exist in electronic form. E-book readers work on small devices such as smartphones or computers and allow users to download thousands of books at once. This spares them the necessity of carrying large volumes.(1) With an e-book reader, the books are stored in portable devices, therefore saving a lot of storage space. E-books eliminate the need to have a physical bookshelf which can quickly run out of storage space. To have an extensive library of paper books, a person would use up a lot of storage space for keeping all the books in physical bookshelves. This is a limitation to the owner of the books because they cannot carry all their volumes with them, especially when one is travelling.
Secondly, e-books are more readily available than paper books. Since e-books exist as digital copies, they never go out of stock. One can purchase an e-book in a matter of seconds online or download them and start reading immediately. The reader does not have to wait for the book to be delivered to them.(2) For paper books on the hand, one can only find them in book stores or libraries which are not always open. This is a limitation to the readers of paper books because they cannot get access to all the books they want at all times. People who read e-books, however, can access thousands of books any time on their e-book reading devices.
Thirdly, e-books are also often cheaper than paper books. E-books are mostly inexpensive and sometimes even free because there are usually no printing fees for producing e-books.(1) However, one must have a particular device to read e-books. They, therefore, have to spend a good amount of money to buy a device for reading the e-books. Print books are much more expensive in contrast to e-books and especially for people who read a lot of books. It would cost someone a lot of money to fully equip a massive library of paper books, unlike e-books which one can download up to thousands of copies at a meager price.
To sum up, e-books are more convenient in comparison with paper books because of their portability, availability and cost-effectiveness. All things considered, although some people still prefer reading paper books to reading e-books, the majority of people nowadays prefer e-books due to the greater ease of use and the more user- friendly features associated with them. Soon e-books will be the primary way of reading for readers around the world.
References
- Selimi DY, V GL. E-books vs. p-books: Who’s profiting? [Internet]. European Scientific Journal. 2012 [cited 2020Apr5]. Available from: https://https://www.eujournal.org/index.php/esj/e-booksorprintbooks
- How e-books are used: A literature review of the e-book studies conducted from 2006 to 2011 [Internet]. Reference and User Service Association. 2012 [cited 2020Apr5]. Available from: https://journals.ala.org/index.php/rusq/article/view/3919/4393