Why Ebooks Are Better Than Books

In this society that is gradually becoming increasingly dependent on technology, will literature slowly disappear from the minds of the population? This is the question that Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, attempts to answer. In this book, he describes a hypothetical world in which the population not only avoids reading, but has made owning books an unthinkable crime, with all books discovered burned, along with the houses of those who hoarded them. In this dystopian future created by Bradbury, the beauty that is literature has been replaced in society by television programs and radio stations. This reveals Bradbury’s obvious fear that modern technology would completely replace books- a legitimate concern to have. In 2015, the value of books differ between groups of people. The disadvantage of this is that books provide the readers opportunity to allow their imaginations to run wild, something that television and radio never could. Fahrenheit 451 addresses the problem and fear of overwhelming technology through its fictional world, which shows what would happen should people render literature completely useless through the use of television and radios.

In the New Atlantis, Christine Rosen wrote an article, “People of the Screen.” The article talks about old books that are no longer being printed, that if the books are no longer printed, if we choose to replace the book-what will become of reading and the print culture it fostered? Rosen states, “We have already taken the first steps on our journey to a new form of literacy— “digital literacy.”

Carr identifies how reading a book is different from reading online because when you read online, you don’t think deeply about what it is you’re reading, and you don’t have to concentrate nearly as much. Carr also mentions that the Internet is something people find themselves going to more often than books because it is more time efficient.

Today, no one seems to give much value of literary works or reading. Not because it doesn’t give anything beneficiary, but because not everyone had the urged to at least finish a book. We now live in a world where social medias almost dominates our daily activities. It’s unlikely to have a place for us to consume a non-fiction or fiction book. As absurd as it sounds but that’s how people often think. We now live in an egalitarian society, where everyone is given the freedom and right of its own.

Literature is known to have a profound impact on people. It can influence their attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and ultimately, their decision-making process. Reading about the thoughts and stories of other people helps one make moral decisions because it develops one's sense of empathy and it makes one learn more about the world, making them a better person in the end.

Lisa Nakamura argues in her article, “Words with Friends”: Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads, that Goodreads is a successful Web 2.0 business, worth studying by literary scholars. By applying the argument Carolyn Miller makes for a successful genre, in her text, Genre as Social Action (1984), Revisited 30 Years Later (2014), one can examine why Goodreads is successful in terms of fulfilling its requirements to its public. Miller defines genre as being “a multidimensional construct”, that is a “typified rhetorical response to” an uptake of a situation, “a ‘macro’ speech act”, “a mediation between private intentions (purpose) and socially objectified needs (exigence)”, and above all she emphasizes that genre must create social action,

After reading the article “Literacy Debate: Online, R U really reading?” by Motoko Rich, I believe that the internet is very beneficial in many ways but I also believe reading books is important at certain times. As being a teenager the internet has become a far better source when it comes to research. The internet is very quick on answers unlike books where you have to flip through pages for an answer to a simple question. Now why would someone choose to do more when they can do less with a simple click of a button? The internet is very useful; without the internet we wouldn’t have been able to have the opportunity to have this discussion here. On the contrary, the internet might be much faster with information but it is not always reliable.

Technology has become an increasingly advanced as well as an important aspect in modern society. That is why Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, was right to fear books and other printed sources would be replaced by modern technology. Technology has contributed to the significant loss of time children spend reading. Additionally, eBooks have replaced print books. Moreover, television and radio have replaced newspapers as the dominant source of information.

The author of, Why Literature Matters” confidently tries to further spread awareness of the decline in reading and persuade the readers to begin reading. Dana Gioia is passionate to this subject and attempts to appeal to the readers heavily through statistics and potential consequences.

As a new revolution rears its head due to rapidly evolving technology, many are becoming concerned with the potential problems that e-books could present. Ms. Elliot, a retired librarian, expresses her apprehension and concern for this electronic book form through a speech conducted at the “Reading: the future” forum. Directing her speech to mainly booklovers, she also reaches out to parents whose children will be most affected by the development of e-books.

In today’s day and age, it is common knowledge that students possess different learning styles than those of generations before them. In the essays by Marc Prensky “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” (2001) and “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?” (2001) the author clearly argues a need to adapt to students modern learning styles. In Lotta Larson’s “The Learning Potential of e-Books” (2015) Larson also argues the clear benefits of eLearning for today’s students. Finally, is Naomi S. Baron’s “How E-Reading Threatens Learning is the Humanities” (2014) a different approach is noted as eLearning could be argued as distracting to a student’s learning process. It is no question that pupils today can

The public would benefit by having immediate access to numerous texts in almost every subject; libraries would no longer be limited to what can be stored on shelves. Researchers would be able to access information instantly, enabling them to work faster, smarter and more efficiently towards their goal. Arguably the most beneficial part of a digital library would be instant translation. Texts of all genres

I think ‘real, physical’ books are better than e-books because you can truly own a book. As Mortimer J. Adler, a popular author, says, ‘Full ownership comes only when you have made [the book] a part of yourself, and the best

Nowadays, there are thousands of books available free on the Internet, and people find them easy to read the book online instead of getting the hard copy of the book. In his book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr explains that the online readings make it becomes difficult for us to pay full attention to the reading “The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing”(7). For example, when I have to read the articles from the Internet for my research papers or class assignments, I always have hard time focus on the reading because I easily get distracted by the ads shown on the pages. I start paying attention to the ads instead of understanding and absorb the information. Carr also states that “For some people, the very idea of reading a book has come to seem old-fashioned, maybe even little silly- like sewing your own shirts or butchering your own meat”(8). In these days, people find it boring to read books, especially young adults, they think it is a waste of time to read books when they can get the short versions of reading from the Internet instead of reading a page to

During the development of technology, most people have shifted to use electronic books to read both academic and non-academic texts. However, despite the technological changes, there has been a wide debate about the benefits of paper books over the e-books. It is important to understand that various reasons are suggesting why people should shift back to using the traditional books rather than the electronic ones. Even though some think that e-books are better that traditional ones, I believe that readers should return to traditional books because of various reasons.