I used to be one of those people that swore by paper books and vowed that if I could, I would avoid reading e-books.
However, not only did my habit of reading slow down during high school, I also began to generally read more e-books than paper books. That is, when I chose to read at all.
I know the debate about e-books and paper books has been going on for quite some time, but I thought I would give my opinion on the matter and discuss the future of paper books.
Although there is no clear answer, according to a 2016 BBC article titled “Are Paper Books Really Disappearing?,” paper books may become obsolete at some point, but it could take between 50 to 100 years.
Some experts, such as Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University in Massachusetts, are worried about this happening.
In the article, it states that Wolf’s research, along with that of other scholars, finds electronic reading can negatively impact the way the brain responds to text. This includes reading, comprehension, focus and the ability to maintain attention to detail.
While this research indicated print is the most immersive form or reading and online text is the most distracting, Kindle reading is somewhere in between.
“A lot of people are worried that our ability to enter into the story is changing,” Wolf said in the article. “My worry is that we’ll have a short-circuited reading brain, excellent for gathering information but not necessarily for forming critical, analytical deep reading skills.”
The article goes on to say Wolf hopes as time goes on that we can continue as a “bi-literate” society that uses both the printed and digital word. I hope that is the case as well.
Besides the fact that digital reading does not provide all of the same benefits as reading on paper, I can’t really imagine a world where books do not exist. I admit I prefer reading paper books, but the convenience of having any book readily available is the reason I largely read e-books now.
If that’s the case, I’m going to treasure the books I currently have.
While I likely still won’t read many paper books since I already have a small library downloaded on my Kindle app, I want to make more of an effort in the future to buy more paper books. Maybe books will become like vinyl records someday — a novelty used for nostalgia’s sake.
Although I don’t own a record player because I can’t justify the cost and because vinyl was already obsolete in my time, I can’t see myself letting go completely of paper books. Hopefully, the nostalgia will keep them around if nothing else.
kchrisco@ius.edu
@katiechrisco
