What is the future of printed books in the digital age?

What is the future of printed books in the digital age?

What is the future of printed books in the digital age?

To ascertain the answers to this question, we need to consider whether the e-books have a notable impact on the production of printed books. E-readers which act as the display medium for e-books are at the heart of making this digital transition and Amazon’s Kindle and Sony reader which have the capability to display pre-print versions of nearly everything from newspapers magazines and books. Internet and Wi-Fi connectivity is enabled in some of these devices has enabled remote reading among book lovers and also ease of portability of several books on an e-readers hard drive.

Printed versions of books necessitate a visit to a library or a bookstore and sometimes the book has limited copies, limitations on checkout or is flat out unavailable, not to mention the amount of time it takes to search and locate a particular book. This is certainly a con for these printed versions since with an internet enabled e-reader such as a tablet, one will scroll on available e-books, search for particular specific books which will be in good form as they do not go through the tear and wear process the refilling does to physical copies. So how do printed books measure up to these newfangled gadgets? You can enjoy a printed version even in direct sunlight. E-readers have light reflecting screens that are more indoor friendly. Cost is another possible negative aspect to e-readers. E-reader clients may pay anywhere between $100 and $500 for a tablet, and many of the bestsellers cost about $9.99. For those habituated to shopping at second hand book shops or borrowing most of their reading material, this is quite cheaper as only a few e-readers allow their clients access to library content. Still, it leaves no doubt that e-readers are useful for ardent book readers. Each tablet has the ability to store up hundreds of books in one portable and user-friendly device, a feature that makes these devices very expedient for students, vacationers and anyone who does lots of reading on the go. Upon looking at what digital media platforms and options have done to CDs and DVD’s, it is absolutely safe to assume that is exactly what e-readers such as Kindle will do to printed books but research has shown otherwise. The Guardian did a survey and found that of those respondents aged between the ages of 16 and 24, 62% of them prefer reading printed books over e-books.http://essaywritings.com.au/

Most environmental conservationists opine that e-books are saving a lot of trees used to manufacture the traditional paperbacks we grew up with, the advent and continued use of e-reading which environmentalists are now preaching, has seen a group of users download millions of e-book copies they would have bought in physical form thus reducing the strain on trees. Developing countries, for example, Kenya have introduced the use of laptops in schools to reduce the number of text books they have to buy but it is very early to ascertain the extent this development has on the environment. Physical copies of books are incorruptible as far as what is written as its contents is concerned: one can easily tell where pages have been torn, scribbled over on stained. This doesn’t work for e-books as the sheer amount of worms and viruses that can affect the e-readers make hard to quantify the level of corruptibility or unintentional deletion.

With all these cons on digital copies of books, it is safe to assume that the physical versions of books will be with us for the foreseeable future at least until the fundamental disadvantage of high costs of e-readers comes down and there are ways to preserve the integrity of the downloads.