October 26 2017

Kathaleen McDonald

Dr. Wielgos

Senior Seminar

26 October 2017

Response Eleven: The Case for Books

            I think in this digital age where printed books are becoming less popular, I don’t think the printed book will ever go out of fashion, or at least, it won’t go out of fashion any time soon. I think that technology changes so often, that other technologies used for reading books quickly become or will become obsolete.

            I think there are just too many benefits to the printed book. It doesn’t run out of batteries, you don’t need to charge it, it’s portable, and it won’t die on you. Although this isn’t to say that there aren’t benefits to eReaders, such as they are also portable, can hold hundreds if not thousands of books on one device, can change the size of the text, can adjust lighting, etc. But I think there’s a reason printed books have survived this long, not just because we’re used to them, but because they’re just so simple to get information from.

            I’ll use my dad as an example: he loves his Kindle. But his Kindle is so small, that he has been known to leave it on the train on his commute home, get frustrated on how to put library books on the device, books will suddenly disappear, etc. Now, my father is in his sixties, so I’m not sure if his problems with this technology are because of his age and inexperience with such technology, or if the technology simply doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. Sure, you can leave a book on the train, but books won’t suddenly leave your hands magically and appear in a different universe never to be seen again (unless you mess with beings beyond our mortal realm, which, I can’t help you with that—you’re on your own). I’m sure Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s Nook will continually come up with ways to make their eReaders better and more user-friendly, but I think there will always be problems surrounding them one way or another.

            I prefer to read printed books, and buy printed books, so I can watch my personal library grow, and look back on books or passages I want to read again. Sure, you can do that with an eReader, but trying to find a specific passage in a book on a device I think is much harder than remembering where the passage was on the physical page of the book, and having the pages to flip directly in your hands. This might just be personal preference, but I think having a little device just doesn’t make up for the hundreds of years of printed knowledge and adventure we have all grown to love (in one way or another—even if you hate reading now, you loved a book at some point in your life). I think Robert Darnton makes a great case for books, and I truly hope that the printed book never goes out of style.