It is often argued that printed books or newspapers will see a radical decline in demand in the future, as more and more people turn to reading materials online without the need to pay for them. I am partially in favor of this argument and will provide reasons why the demand for printed books will decrease, but will not cease to exist.
On the one hand, one needs to perceive the advantages that printed hard-cover books bring that prevent them from becoming obsolete. From a psychological standpoint, touching and smelling paper books can be incredbily rewarding and relaxing as they result in your body to release certain mood-regulating hormones into your blood stream, a benefit which may not otherwise be enjoyed by reading e-books. Furhtermore, reading printed books is incredibly easy on the eyes, compared to their electronic counterparts, resulting in people with rather poor eye sights to never setting them aside. According to a research conducted in 2015, people who read books online, developed numerous optic problems when compared to people who used printed books.
On the other hand, there are countless reasons why many would prefer e-books over hard-copy reading materials, especially as time advances. First of all, e-books and online news articles rely on either cloud systems or personal computer space for storage purposes, which greatly reduce the amount of space needed to store books, especially when you take into consideration how difficult it is to store a large quantity of hard-copy books. With the progression of technology, this gap will become even more apparent, leading to many people setting aside their printed books in favor of e-books. Furthermore, in order to access reading materials online, one can use a large variety of gadgets, ranging from mobile phones to personal computers, gadgets which are found almost everywhere, signifying the ease of access that naturally comes with reading books online.
Consequently, while online reading materials are of numerous benefits like optimized storage space and ease of access, printed books will continue to be of use due to psychological and physiological reasons.