Kindle vs. Physical Books

Haylee Dussault

            Today it is becoming more and more obvious that e-books such as the Kindle are rising in popularity. It seems as though soon enough they may even become more popular and prominent than hardcopy books themselves. As we talked about in class and as mentioned in The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, there may be a time when the hardcover book are not even used anymore. In reality, e-books such as the Kindle are definitely more convenient than physical books. In one small machine, you have the power to access millions of books with the click of a button. You can take it around with you wherever you want, because it is probably smaller than most books, and you also have the ability to play games and access the Internet with this device. You can buy a Kindle for as little as $79, which is worth it when you add together all of the capabilities and the amount of books you can gain access to with this amount of money.

            I can definitely see the physical book decreasing in popularity and usage as technology continually advances. Soon enough I can see books rapidly declining and maybe even stopping and becoming a thing of the past. Today, most books that you can get in physical form can also be found over the web either online or in an e-book. Even encyclopedias and dictionaries are now online. It is safe to say that I do not believe I have picked up an actual dictionary to look up a word for around five years, or at least since I was in middle school. Nowadays you can gain access to almost anything in the world online, so there becomes less and less of a point to spend time flipping through the pages of an actual dictionary.

            Although, as discussed in class, there are pros and cons to the decline of book usage. When using an actual book you can write notes in it if you own it, you can highlight specific words in order to look them up later for a better understanding, and you can take them almost anywhere without much worry of them getting damaged. They may not be as convenient as an e-book or the Internet, but they are definitely reliable. If you spill something on a book, you will most likely still be able to read it, whereas if you spill something on your Kindle it will probably cost a lot to repair it or get a new one. I am honestly not much of a reader in my spare time, so I do not see the point in spending money on an e-book when I could take a book out of the library when and if I need one, but I can definitely see the attraction of e-books to people that do continual free reading, and want to have a whole world of books constantly at their fingertips. Only time will tell whether or not the hardcopy book remains relevant, or becomes a thing of the past.