There is an undeniable charm associated with curling up and reading a good book, flipping through the pages, all nice and cozy. However, there is increasing marketing and reading of e-books rather than physical books.
These two things may seem as though they would be synonymous because you are still reading, but if that’s you’re thinking, you'd be wrong. There are many differences between the two, and although e-books and other electronic reading can be very convenient sometimes, physical books, newspapers, etc. still come out on top.
When you sit down with a physical book, it is much more of an experience. You are engaged through flipping each page. If it is an old book, it has that wonderful “old book smell.” You can feel the pages beneath your fingers adding yet another level to the reading experience.
Conversely, when you sit down with your tablet or computer to read, there is nowhere near such an experience. Rather than flipping pages you scroll on a screen, there is no “old tablet smell.” y=Your eyes are strained more because of the blue light coming off the screen. Not to mention, when reading electronically, one is much more likely to skim rather than read deeply and comprehend.
Take a moment to consider how quick most things read on a screen are: Instagram posts, three-minute reads, Facebook posts, little blurb blogs, summaries of an article, etc. All of these things take probably under five minutes to read and understand, whereas a full book takes hours, if not days, to finish. Because of the short time it takes to finish many pieces on screens, one gets into the habit of expecting all things on a screen to be quick, causing you to skim rather than read if it’s longer than a typical post.
A book requires patience that is much easier to find when not trying to read off something that has conditioned us to think that it should take under five minutes to finish reading a piece. Books have experiences to the physicality of them that are missed out on when reading on a screen.
There are benefits to having a tablet or something of the like to read from. One tablet with 100 books is much more portable and faster to sift through than 100 physical books.
However, not everything needs to be fast and easy. Some things, like books, are meant to be experiences. So, despite the few benefits of e-books, physical books are superior in both comprehension and experience.
Anna Millar is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What are your thoughts? Tweet her @AnnaMillar16.
