Narora

This topic is continuing on from last week, where I was talking about technology and how it is harming our lives. This week in the Globe and Mail there was an article talking about e-book and how they could potentially ruining literature as well as the purpose of having books. It was only a couple of years ago, when people could only retrieve there books at a near by book store. In today's society people are able to retrieve there books over the internet. What people fear most is that books will become obsolete and will later not exist. The feeling of holding a book will no longer remain, but is that what reading is all about? Does it matter whether you read a hardcover book or not? Or whether the book has a cooler cover? Since when did books become a fashion statement? It is kind of funny how if you ever go to an old persons house you will always see stacks and stacks of books making it seem like it is a decoration piece. Do people fear reading will vanish or just the decorative style of it?

In some ways they are right when they say that e-books should not become the primary source of reading because if that were the case, you could guarantee a great decrease in literary skills from future generations. When you combine a skill like reading with a device like the i-pad you will definitely notice a difference. Having text on an electronic device can be both a good and bad thing, depending on how you look at it. The good thing about reading on any e-book device is that it is more convenient and space friendly. Rather than carrying thousand of books around with you on a bus or to class, you can store them all on one hand device, allowing for easy access. The bad thing about e-books is that fact that it can become to complex from some users. Those who have been reading book for there whole lives and never going near technology, maybe forced to for the first time. In that case it maybe hard for them to navigate themselves to reading a book or even turning on the device for that matter. The other problem with making e-book a primary source of literature is the fact that if anything ever goes wrong with the device, you are left with nothing to fall back on.

I am not saying that e-books are bad or that they should not exist but what I am saying is that making e-books a primary source of literature would change the world of reading and readers. If you put literature on a device like the i-pad, you are basically tempting kids to ignore the book and play the games on the device. E-books will also push the older generations away from novels due to the complexity of some devices.

Advantages:
-Easy access
-Easy storage
-Adjustable towards standard (ex. font size)
-convenient
-In some cases it is free
-Easy for research (search key words)

Disadvantages:
-Hard to use
-result in technical difficulties
-Hard on the eyes (screen resolution and light)

If I were to choose between and e-book and a regular book, I would have to stick with the regular book, at least for now. This is because I feel comfortable having a book in my hand rather then a tech device. Maybe in the future if the e-book becomes more advanced and dedicated I might switch, but only for certain things like research otherwise when reading novels I will always prefer a book from an i-pad.


Source - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/gadgets/review-homegrown-kobo-hits-the-shelves/article1551370/