E-books read 60% more books than others, true?

[Vento]

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I happened to read about a survey conducted on the reading habits of e-books readers in America and the comparison was with non-eb-ook readers. I found things to be pretty interesting but frankly, a bit unreal too. So, I thought of taking opinions from you guys! Also, I would like to state what i happened to read in the survey. The survey stated the following facts:

- The number of Americans who have read an e-book is considerably high than print-book readers, this was the basic finding of the study
- An average E-book reader reads about 24 books whereas only 15 books are read by non-e-book users. This is the number of books in a year.
- There were 21 percent of US citizen who read atleast one e-book in the previous year compared to 72 percent of them said they have read one print book in the same span
- 42 percent of e-book readers read on their computer, 41 percent on an e-book reader but 29 percent have started reading on their cellphones. There are 23 percent reading from tablet also
- Out of the entire lot of e-book readers, 88% have read a printed book also during the last year.
- 61 percent of e-book readers have purchased the e-books where as only 48 percent of other readers have purchased it, rest of all prefer taking it from friends and all
- According to 81 percent of people present for the survey, it is still the printed books that are perfect for children for varying reasons
- According to 73 percent of people present for the survey, it is the e-books that they would chose while travelling or communicating

[Bubboy]

In my humble opinion, although people might be using e-books over printed books in certain situations, but I strongly feel, printed books still holds a higher emotional value, for it was not only used for reading if you remember well... a printed book had many other applications in real life, this might sound funny to you but I have reasons of my own. The applications being:

- Can you use an e-book to throw at someone when you have an urge to?
- Can you burn an e-book when you are shivering with cold and all you want is a slight flow of heat through you body
- If you go around your house, how many tables and cup-boards will you find is levelled on a printed book, you think an e-book can do that?
- Where was majority of your valuable belongings saved during your childhood, can you do the same with an e-book?

I might be sounding lame to many of you. But i tell you, none of you all can disregard what I said because each of have done what I just mentioned, haven’t you?

[Educated]

Gosh! That was lame for sure. I mean people are ought to have opinions about technology and the pre-technology phase and many find the pre-technology things more better but trust me, something like this is unexpected. I got the shock of my life when I read this. I mean, what a deep insight! . If you think i am pulling your leg, I am because this is pure bizarre!
I am not trying to oppose him on his very opinion that printed books are better but I am opposing his justification. I would rather like to place a few justifications that might look more logical:
• They are easily obtainable. Where on earth can’t you find a book store? Even Antarctic might be having one.
• There is no portability issue as people tend to keep complaining about. It is very easy to carry if you love them. Do you complain carrying your baby?
• They hardly cause any sort of eye-strain! They are excellent at that point. The only condition is that you need to have proper lights to read.
• They are any day cheaper than e-books in spite of the fact that they have printing cost and all, still it is way too cheaper
• Paper books do not need power to function, carry it anywhere and everywhere and with sufficient light i can be used everywhere.
• E-books are so not readily available and the format clashes are such a turn off that you tend to avoid reading the book only.

Do we need more reasons to love paper books? And pass on the raw and crude heritage of reading to our coming generation? Reading is not just a source of entertainment it is a source of knowledge which has a certain way to be sought for. There’s no better experience of reading a book than if it is a printed one.

[Memphis M]

I have no idea from where did this survey come up? Did they like chose all people belonging to the same age group or profession? It is so senseless of them to rate e-books over our classic heritage of paper books. You have stated reasons that are enough for any user to understand why printed book and not an e-book. But i have some more practical reasons. I am not speaking with emotional strings attached to printed books or other observations and generic comments. I am saying this with an experience worth commenting. I have used both and this is what I felt:
E-books are totally useless after buying if you don’t have an e-book reader. If you lose an e-book reader, it is more like burning your entire book shelf off! All gone in a second. They are quite expensive! God know what the reason is, but e-books somehow come very expensive, might be because of the target audience, they are considered elite, you see. The eye-strain caused on eyes due to an e-book reader is like crazy. Imagine staring at a digital device 24x7, unimaginable right? A laptop has some, 4-6 hours of battery life, which means you cannot sit and read at a stretch if you are travelling for couple of days. Imagine you are engrossed in reading and a stupid software bug comes up, and you realize you can’t read further can things get worse for you? They are not at all robust. That is if you happen to spill some beverage or happen to drop a e-book reader you can bid a goodbye to, however heavy your heart gets There is no fixed pricing model for an e-book. The publications charge what they feel and people are conned into it and this is a major drawback these days.
If I ask you now, would you ever chose an e-book? No! Would be your prompt answer. In current scenario, it’s senseless to say a yes!

[Educated]

Am I sitting amidst a group of hypocrites? Imagine a group of people who are online 24x7, want to use everything that technology gives. The same people who take the pain of coming online, reading, posting and writing in forums with the belief that they are being read and what they have written is benefitting a huge community of people are using the same to curse the same media. What else do I call you all? E-books is a new technology and it does have minor, ignorable flaws which are definitely not strong enough to sit and curse the entire technical community. Being a growing technology, it is doing its bit in removing all the above mentioned flaws or demerits to state it better. Reviews and criticism is appreciated but such partial statements are not acceptable. You all were great in enlisting the demerits of e-books; let me take a totally different take over it,. I would like to enlist the points where e-books score over printed books. I definitely cannot provide a solution for a e-book being able to level a mis-balanced table or ward-robe. As someone rightly mentioned, it is bizarre! Total bizarre! Anyways, talking about why e-book? Or why not e-books?

The myth that e-books aren’t easy to obtain is totally wrong. Forget new ones, even old classics are available in digital format these days. This is currently one of the greatest achievements of the industry. Also, someone mentioned about portability, you’ve got to be kidding right? If you have to carry 5 books and 5 e-books what will you chose? Answer it to yourself, not to me. To use an e-book you need no external light source, any electric equipment be it e-book reader or mere laptop comes in with in-built light enabling you to read even inside a tunnel. E-books come with zoom functions, making it easy for people of all age group to use it as per their own convenience. Note-taking is extremely powerful and erasable. Can’t you still the pencil imprints on your paper book? You will never find that on an e-book. An e-book reader comes with a very battery life than mentioned here.

There are many such reasons where e-books score over normal printed books but that never means we need to rule out the use of paper books, they hold their own value. But you cannot isolate or degrade the use of e-books. You have to accept and live by the fact that e-book is the future of reading! This is an unarguable truth.