The number of people prefer to read digital books rather than hard-copy books has been increasing recently. Some argue that online books are convenient and affordable, while others believe their collections are not as extensive as conventional books and frequently reading them may impact individuals’ eyesight. In my opinion, there are more benefits than drawbacks to reading online books.
Digital books are beneficial for both individuals and wider society. For individuals, the most obvious benefit is that reading books on electronic devices is practical because it only requires devices with an internet connection while, at the same time, they can carry numerous literature in one device. For example, students can use Kindle to download their school subjects’ books from Amazon and read them while commuting. Besides that, the prices of digital books are very reasonable, and they are even free. Publishers have their digital books on their websites for competitive prices due to the lower production cost. For instance, people can access free research papers, school books, or academic journals from some websites by creating an account and sharing information about the sites on their social media. If this literature is accessible, literacy levels can be maintained.
Among the drawbacks, difficulties keeping up with the pace of technological change are often viewed warily by seniors in accessing e-books. To that, we could add the elderly could need guidance to use the apps or create an account on the websites to read digital books, which is why most of them are choosing printed books. However, it could be argued that by using Kindle, seniors are only required to search for the books they desire, and they can directly read into them. Moreover, people will face risks to eyesight if they spend a lot of time reading books on digital devices. Nevertheless, individuals should be able to limit their screen time to prevent that from happening.
In conclusion, the trend of reading digital books is advantageous because people have an easy access to several books in one device with reasonable prices. Although there are downside to this trend, I believe that they are outweighed by the advantages to both individual and society.