Week 3 Post for Mass Media Class

Books Go Digital

When Amazon’s Kindle first came out, I was excited. I was like a child begging my parents to buy me this new toy. I am a huge reader and I figured the Kindle would take reading to a whole new level. It did. Well, sometimes it did.

When I was taking classes at the local college and couldn’t fit a novel in my backpack, I carried my Kindle. It was great. It weighed nothing and I could have any book I wanted at the touch of a button. Ironically, I would spend my free hours sitting in the library with my Kindle. There was nothing I disliked about it except for the fact that it wasn’t a real, paperbound, full of actual paper pages book. I carried it whenever I couldn’t pack a real book.

On the other hand, when I was at home or going on a long car trip with plenty of room, I read from a real book. For me, there is just something about holding those pages in your hands and smelling the ink while you read. Kindle are good for convenience, but when given the choice, I will always pick the real book.

I believe that one day, people will stop printing books. I don’t think that it will happen anytime soon, but I do think it will happen. It is very sad when you think about it. We have come such a long way from having books written by hand and only available to a select few. With all these e-books and other devices that make almost any written work available at the touch of a button, who is going to want to search through shelves at a store or dig through the dollar bin at a library?