David Eide – Opinion Columnist
In the past few decades, a lot of hay has been made over the reading habits of the various younger generations, whether those be millennials or Gen Z. In general, the coverage contends that the youth aren’t reading enough because of the internet or phones or whatever other new thing catches their fancy. However, recent data suggests that younger generations, Gen Z in particular, are actually reading quite a bit more than older generations and, in fact, they prefer physical books over the wide variety of e-readers available to them. To be completely honest, I feel pretty validated by these findings as singing the praises of physical books has long been a personal hobby horse of mine. Fundamentally I view physical books as superior to digital ones and while I can accept that there are some areas in that digital books do better, such as convenience and storage space, those benefits are ultimately overpowered by the sheer greatness of physical books. By the end of this article, I hope to have made at least a somewhat convincing case for why you should prefer physical books to digital versions, which have constantly been pushed on us since they were first released.
First of all, I’d like to discuss the aesthetic reasons behind my preference. Personally speaking, I think physical books just feel great and there is just something wonderful about the feeling of paper on your fingers and the sound of turning pages. I also think that physical books make much better use of covers than digital books. While the covers are usually the same between editions, I think it’s a lot easier to appreciate a design when it is physically printed rather than just being a collection of pixels that you have to click through. In general, the physicality that physical books bring is a major part of why I prefer them so much to digital books. I have a pretty large library at home and I love that I can actually see how I’ve built up my collection over the years as compared to a digital library which would literally just be a list on a screen like so many other things have become in recent years.
Another major reason for my strong preference for physical books over digital versions is that I think they promote better reading comprehension. Some studies have actually shown that the tactile feedback and general structure of physical books actually lead to better absorption of the information being conveyed in comparison to digital text. I can attest to this personally, I’ve found that whenever I utilize digital textbooks I have to do a lot of rereading to fully comprehend what is being said, whereas it usually only takes one readthrough with physical editions. I usually read digital textbooks on my laptop which can alleviate some of the issues but tablets and phones, which most people use for leisure reading, are so much worse for comprehension. There’s something about the way in which pages are unnaturally split up on smaller devices like phones that makes it really difficult to actually integrate all the knowledge effectively in my experience. While some features included in digital books, like the ability to bookmark many different pages or the word search feature, go a way to alleviate this issue, they cannot fully eliminate it as it is intrinsic to the medium.
The previous reasons I’ve provided could potentially be dismissed as a mere personal preference but this final one is very important, no matter what your perspective on digital books is. This final reason is the fact that when you buy a digital book, you don’t actually own it. You are, in effect, just licensing them from the publisher and they reserve the right to alter or remove them whenever they please. This bugs me a lot. When I buy a book, or anything really, I want to know that I will always have access to that book and in the form in which I originally bought it. If you think I’m being hyperbolic with these claims, I can point you towards a specific example of this happening in just the past couple of months. I am speaking of the recent controversy where a number of Roald Dahl’s books were edited to remove content that was viewed as offensive. Now, I’m not here to speak one way or another as to whether the edits were correct or not, but what is important to the main point is that anyone who had a Roald Dahl ebook had their copies replaced with the edited versions without their consent. To me, this demonstrates that companies are absolutely willing to alter digital books when it suits their purposes.
While digital books may be deemed as more efficient or more convenient, I don’t believe that they will ever fully be able to supplant the classic physical book. In my opinion, there are just certain forms that are the optimal way to consume a given piece of media, the best way to see a movie is on the big screen, and the best way to read a book is with a physical copy. So it’s needless to say that I have been quite heartened to see many people express similar views. Here’s hoping that physical books continue to be sold widely in the decades to come.