Why you should finally ditch the digital books

Picture taken by Me 🙂

Print is the gold medal, the first place winner and the ruler of the reading world.

I can tell you this all day if I want, but I would rather prove to you that print books are better.

So I have provided a list below of articles that prove through science, reason and the beauty of print books as to why print is better than digital. All these articles will help you see why I believe you should stick to print and ditch digital books.

• Why Printed Books Will Never Die –“E-books are not simply a better format replacing an inferior one; they offer a wholly different experience,” according to Josh Catone, who has written about technology since 1998 for magazines, newspapers and web sites. Catone compellingly argues why e-readers will never take over the book world. He provides perspective from several others that give new and fresh views on e-readers and print books.
• 10 Reasons Real Books Are Better Than E-books – “Long live the printed word!” states Heather Newman on Buzzfeed, which is an American Internet news media company that was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti in New York City. I love this article because I can relate to nine out of 10 of these reasons. Sorry, books. I love you, but I won’t ever get a tattoo.
• House of Book is a Magical Project Showing Libraries From All Over the World – Witness the beauty of libraries. Udi Tirosh, the editor of DIY Photography, which is a site for photography lovers that was founded in 2006, reports on a photographer that takes beautiful pictures of libraries in Rome. These pictures show books in their natural habitat and are stunning.
• E-Readers Foil Good Night’s Sleep – We all love to get as much sleep as we can get. Elaine St. Peter of Harvard Medical School wrote this arfticle. Harvard, which excels in education and research, is located in Boston, Mass.. Peter reveals that reading an e-reader before you go to bed can affect how much sleep you get. E-readers can cause you to get less sleepdue to the light they emit while you read and therefore make you less alert the next day.
• Study shows readers absorb less information when reading on a Kindle – When it comes to digital, readers absorb less information, according to a study that Bob Yirka reports on Phys.org, which is a science news website that includes 1.75 million readers every month who are scientists, researchers and engineers. I don’t know about you, but I know that I want to absorb what I read. Whether you’re reading to educate yourself or you’re reading for pleasure, what’s the point if you don’t absorb what you read?

Print has beauty that digital does not have, print is better for our brains, print is better for our sleep cycles and print is simply the superior format of books. So take the steps to becoming a book savior and ditch the digital.

Jane Austen converted me

I was a senior in high school when Jane Austen changed forever the way I read books.

In the advanced placement literature class we were assigned the analysis a novel, and I chose “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen. I had not read the novel, but I had watched the movie version, starring Keira Knightly, a thousand times and loved it!

That following weekend I sat on the couch next to my mother, a warm spring breeze blowing through the open windows. The room was filled with bright sunshine as I asked my mother if she owned a copy of “Pride and Prejudice”.

“No, but you can get it for free on your Kindle,” she said.

I then proceeded to download the book.

Even though I had the novel, and for free for that matter, I just couldn’t bring myself to read it on my Kindle.

I would stare at the first page of the novel glowing on my Kindle screen, and at one point, I got through the first sentence, but couldn’t go on. I realized then that I wanted to read “Pride and Prejudice” on paper.

The next day I went to the bookstore in town, chose the copy of “Pride and Prejudice” that I wanted and then handed the sales person the thin piece of blue plastic.

I had just purchased the book that would begin my journey towards a happy life away from digital and towards one filled with paper.

I realized three things that night, once I started reading the book. 1) I have always wanted stories that I loved in paper format, 2) “Pride and Prejudice” is a classic, and so 3) I felt that I should read and enjoy it the way it was originally published.

I wanted to be able to immerse myself in Elizabeth and Darcy’s love story, to comprehend it fully, analyze it the best I could and to just enjoy it. I believed in order to do all this I needed the real thing in my hand and not a cold, thin digital e-book reader filled with millions of pixels.

“A number [of neuroscientists] have documented, anecdotally and in their research, cases of readers who can no longer absorb classic literature or dense, complicated prose because of the habits they’ve developed on a screen,” according to an article in The Washington Post by Caitlyn Dewey, who has been an associate online editor at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and has written for the New York Times and The Atlantic.

Some studies have proven that better comprehension comes with paper because digital differs in the way we can maneuver through a text, and, therefore, lowers our comprehension, according to Ferris Jabr on Scientific American, which is the leading source for science, technology information and policy for a general audience, was founded in 1845 and is headquartered in New York City.

A different study showed that between Kindle readers and readers of print, “The Kindle readers, it turned out, were far worse at remembering the story’s plot than were the print readers” according to Dewey.

“Because getting away from multipurpose screens improves concentration—people consistently say that when they really want to dive into a text, they read it on paper,” according to Jabr.

So put down the digital reader, whichever one you may have, and return to paper. You’ll better understand the novel and be on your way to becoming a book savior, just like me.

Slay the beast

The future of books by Johan Larsson, CC BY 2.0

Digital is the ice-breathing dragon destroying the kingdom of book readers!

              Digital can destroy your eyes!  You strain your eyes when reading from an electronic device. People who spend more than two hours a day using digital screens are more likely to develop eye strain, according to the American Optometric Association, which was founded in 1898 and is a federation of state, student and armed forces optometric associations.

However, even knowing this, people continue to put their eyes in harm’s way. “Nearly 70 percent of U.S. adults experience digital eye strain as a result of the growing use of these devices,” according to The Vision Council, which is a member-driven organization formed in the 1940s.

             Digital readers are feeding the dragon! “25 percent of E-book owners surveyed said they would buy fewer printed books, 15 percent said they buy no printed books and 9 percent said they would not buy a printed book even if the book they wanted was not available as an E-book,” according to an article from the Green Press Initiative, which is a nonprofit program funded by grant foundations, such as the Town Creek Foundation and the Weeden Foundation.

              Print is the authentic way to go! A bound paper book provides a more physical stimulation during reading than a digital device. “Some e-books offer little in the way of spatial landmarks, giving a sense of an infinite page,” according to Open Education Database, which has been a leader in the open education movement since 2007.

These spatial landmarks are the physical aspects your brain interprets, such as how heavy a book is or the weight of the pages you have left to finish a book.

Here’s another difference between reading from a digital device or a printed book: Digital commands more work for your eyes, according to the American Optometric Association. Leading back to my point: Digital causes eye strain!

                 I slayed the dragon! I was once one of those people solely invested in electronics and the wonders of technology. I never read for pleasure because I found entertainment through television and the computer. In middle school, I was introduced to my first novel – in print. I thank my mother that my first encounter was with the print format.

                Now you slay the dragon! Having a connection with what you read, and reading in the safest way possible, makes the reading experience that much better. So, choose print with me, and ditch the digital. Print needs you to make the effort though, so be a book savior with me.

 

Paper trumps digital

Just a book and a ♥ by Silke Gerstenkorn, CC BY-NC 2.0

Books are my closest friends; real books, heavy books, not the ones that glow on a screen.

I can’t apologize to the tree huggers out there. Paper, to me, makes a book real. You can feel the weight of each piece of paper as you turn page to page; you can hear the rustle of the paper as you turn page to page. You can even smell the paper’s uniqueness. The words on the pages of a book may provide characters, a plot and possibly a happy ending, but paper gives the readers the ability to literally hold the story in their hands.

Paper gives the reader the ultimate experience with four of the five senses engaged. I guess you could taste a book and make it all five, if you want.

With all the amazing things paper books can do to stimulate us during the reading process, why not choose it over the digital forms? Yeah, it may cost a little more, but it’s worth it!

There is trouble in the kingdom of paper books, though. One book retailer, Amazon, is responsible for a quarter of the U.S. book sales. I became very upset when I read these statistics from Open Education Database, which has been a leader in the open education movement since 2007.

We all know that Amazon provides both digital and print formats of books, so they could be selling more print than digital right? Not so. Digital book sales are higher than that of paper books. Total digital sales in 2012 were $282.3 million compared to $229.6 million for paper, according to the Eco-Libris, a company that aspires to be eco-friendly and work with nonprofit organizations to promote going green.  Amazon is not the only company that sell digital books, but it did, however, contribute to these sales.  Digital may be cheaper at times and more convenient, but if we truly love books, we would not buy these “off brand” versions. We would buy the authentic version of the book instead.

You may be saving money, but you are also causing economic damage. “Over a seven-year period, more than 1,000 bookstores closed down for good,” according to Open Education Database. In my mind, that is a lot of doors shutting in seven years. Books need a home before they reach your hands, just like orphans or rescued animals, and theirs is simply  local stores, big corporation bookstores or libraries around the world.

I want to convert people of all ages to the paper format. My generation, the millennials, is most in need of conversion.  “Adults between the ages of 18 to 24 … spend the least amount on book purchases,” according to Veronica G. Rodriguez article on SBDGNet, which is the official National Information Clearinghouse of the U.S. Small Business Administration and is funded in part by a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.

I ask you now, should you make the switch to paper? Should you spend your money on paper books when digital may be cheaper at times? Is the experience really that great? Should you really listen to me? The answer is YES! Books need a savior, so be a savior with me!