Ebooks VS Real Books
I know there has been a lot of debate about e-books and hard copy books. Some people tend to prefer the soft copy and easily transportable e-book while others like the tangible hardcopy which they can carry around and flick through. More than general preferences, many scientists have also researched the effects of both on health and wellbeing.
I happen to be one of those people who enjoy both, e-books and hard copy books. They both have their advantages and disadvantages which is what I will be discussing in this post.
EBOOKS
Advantages:- Easy to carry around and transport from one place to the other
- Can have millions of choices
- Don’t take up any physical space
- No trees are required for manufacturing
- Delivered instantly (no waiting or standing in lines)
- Easy to read on the go
- Can search keywords, phrases and page numbers
- Can bookmark/highlight/add notes to pages
- Can continue to read from the last time without having to flick and find
- Fonts can be resized/magnified
- Brightness levels can be adjusted
- Backlit devices (such as most e-book readers) can harm eyes
- Get back pain from being hunched over
- Get finger pain from constantly flicking pages on a screen
- Reading e-books before bed can reduce sleep as the body is still awake due to the backlit light
- Being on a screen might stress you out more than reading a real book
HARD COPY BOOKS
Advantages:- Do not affect the eyes
- You can physically own the book. It can sit on your bookshelf. You can touch the cover and pages.
- Allows single tasking. When using a device such as a kindle or tablet, it is easy to get distracted by messages and emails.
- Creates a memory of reading the actual, physical hard copy book.
- Getting to flick through the pages.
- Higher cost involved in buying hard copy
- Have to find room for it
- Cannot resize the text
- Hard to transport, especially if it weighs a lot
- Resources wasted to create the book
- Have to physically bookmark current page or memorise page number
- Hard to read in bad lighting
So those were some of the advantages and disadvantages of
both sides. I still stick to my firm belief in loving and using both. Sometimes
when I can’t find a book in the stores, I’ll look for it online. Or if I’m
feeling too lazy to go to the stores, I’ll scroll through online and read on my
iPad. However, if I do find it in hard copy, I usually end up reading that. I feel
like both ways work just fine but I want to know what you guys think.
What do you prefer? And is there anything I could add to
those lists that I might have missed? Let me know in the comments & I’ll see
you all in my next blog post.
0 happy thoughts