According to Amazon.com and this article by Jen Lancaster, this Christmas season was the first time the Kindle e-books outsold regular, old-fashioned books. While I have been aware that this would eventually happen once the Kindle was introduced (along with the B&N Nook, Sony Reader, and others), it makes me sad and somewhat aggravated.
I understand the reasons why people love these e-readers; namely the portability and instant reading. However, I wonder if the users of these various e-readers have considered that they may be contributing to the possible extinction of physically bound books? Our society is one fueled by instant gratification (among other things), so it makes sense that someone would come up with this device. But whatever happened to the joy of reading an actual book? Then there is the thought that staring at the screen of an e-reader at length probably is just as bad as staring at a computer screen. But in our computerized society, that probably is not a big concern to most people.
I personally don’t even want a Kindle. Yes, instant reading is great, and the Kindle and other similar devices are light and easy to carry – but then again, so are books. And, like Lancaster notes, it’s apparently the one item that TSA isn’t worried about triggering an explosion onboard a flight. E-readers can get wet, may break if dropped, and are most likely prone to computing issues like regular computers.
My major concern is that these readers will make regular books obsolete. We have already seen that anything can be purchased online (and many things on Amazon.com alone!). We have witnessed video stores like Blockbuster take a huge hit from the availability of movies both online and through mail such as Netflix. I fear that Barnes and Noble & Borders Bookstore, along with numerous other smaller book stores will be a thing of the past. And that just shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
