The way people read has gone through some dramatic changes with the introduction of the full-fledged e-Book and e-readers. Amazons’ Kindle and Rakuten’s Kobo have taken a major share of this pie, but despite the growth, there is still some reticence in opting for an e-book, especially among the students who are undergoing higher studies. This article tries to understand the cause of this reticence.

Pros

A large number of people agree with the advantages of an e-Book. For one, they are easy to carry and consume a very limited space. They can very easily fit into your backpack.

Next is the ability to change fonts to suit one’s taste. The ability to search within a text is thought to be a great advantage, but it has its limitations. Most importantly, they can get immediate access to books from anywhere and at any time or place. Lastly, the provision of dictionaries and thesaurus is seen to be a very useful option. With all these advantages and many more that have not been discussed here, the question foremost in many minds are – why does everyone not prefer e-Books?

The main reason could be that book lovers or bibliophiles love to read the written content, the paper that it is written on, the paper that they have to turn, and the satisfaction of finishing a book and replacing it on their bookcase. This is an emotional attachment that may be quite difficult to break.

Cons

Let us look beyond the emotional attachments and delve into some of the physical difficulties that people face while reading on an e-Book. The main concern was the eye-strain that the device caused. Many users of e-books have complained that they suffer eye-strain. However, there are some positive developments of the screen and hopefully, this would be solved in the coming days.

Another difficulty that people especially students faced with e-books is the difficulty in previewing and tracking within the text. People found it rather difficult to browse back to the exact position in the book when they use a smaller screen. Small screens fragment the text and this creates difficulties in searching.

Highlighting and annotating are very important aspects when reading especially for students. They prefer the printed book to the e-book as it is easier for them to perform these functions on a normal book. Performing these two operations on an e-book has its inherent difficulties.

The e-book is a wonderful development and many people have switched over to this form of reading mainly because of the easy accessibility of books and the ability to read from anywhere, anytime. But they do have their inherent disadvantages that have to be sorted out. However, as an all you can books, the e-book is here to stay.