Books are the integral part of everyone’s life. They provide us abundance of knowledge and shows us pathways in our life.
Books are called man’s best friend as they help us to grow as a better human. In schools, books play an important role for overall development of children by teaching them moral values and ethics. Books teach us how to become a successful person and succeed in life. However, with the advancements in the technology, the use of electronic media has been increased and it has been argued that eBooks are going to take place of traditional books in the future.
Going with the advantages we all knew that eBooks are easy to carry from one place to another and, they occupy very less space as compared to traditional books. Moreover, increased use of eBooks will help to save paper. So, there are many advantages of eBooks over traditional books but every coin has its flipside and eBooks have their own disadvantages. To begin with, eBooks are electronic books and to access them we need computer or any other hand-held devices with software installed which can cost a lot of money just to read a book and a student cannot afford all these expenses. Not only this, sometimes software is not compatible with our electronic devices which can be a great hurdle to read books. Secondly, eBooks do not have a defined life as new technology and software are always emerging and when we update to new software there is always a risk of losing saved books. Moreover, using electronic devices such as tablets, palmtops, and computers can result into many ailments among children like Computer Vision Syndrome, dry eyes, eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision and so on.
Also, medical researchers say that people who use mobile devises more often are more prone to musculoskeletal disorders. Apart from this, students can get easily distracted with apps, games and websites installed in their electronic devices and this will decrease the quality of study and this will lead to an easily distracted generation with short attention plans. Textbooks are much better than digital books or eBooks as the researchers have also proved that people who read comprehend text are ones who remember and learn more than those who prefer digital or eBooks. This happens so because the brain interprets digital and printed text in different ways and it reads digital text 20-30% slower than printed text. Moreover, students who prefer typing rather than writing finds it very hard to learn and remember things.
Moreover, electronic devices produce many harmful waves which have an adverse effect on health of children. Also, manufacturing of such devises has a negative impact on environment too. However, it is true that eBooks helps to save paper but it is also equally true that cost of manufacturing such devises is much higher than manufacturing tonnes of paper and once such digital devises are broken, then it will need an experienced technician to fix the problems associated with that and this will cost a lot of money. In this way eBooks are very expensive as compared to traditional books which can be repaired with simple glue and tape. Not only this, eBooks are connected to the internet for downloading further books and can be easily got hacked, freeze and crash. Nowadays, hackers hack our computers and pirate the books downloaded in our computers which is not possible with printed textbooks.
Electronic books are not convenient to be used by students in schools because such devices require electricity and battery life and battery lives of electronic devices like tablets, palmtops and computers are not much longer than 7.26 hours i.e., shorter than the length of a school day. Also, electronic devices are very costly and are more susceptible to theft than printed books.
