In my opinion e-books do not provide students with what they need. Instead they take away what students need the most: attentiveness. “And if there’s anything in short supply among students these days, it’s attentiveness.” (paragraph 1) Without e-books it is already hard enough for many students to read without procrastinating and getting of task. To throw in another electronic device would just agitate the situation even more. Because an e-book provides Internet, it would create a temptation to surf the web. This is a temptation that does not exist when holding a print book. In addition, for a screen to be in front of your eyes for too long causes headaches, deterioration of eyesight and even stress. On the other hand, when one is reading a print book the pages of the book naturally shield you from looking around and getting distracted. “And when you just want to read, the tranquility of a printed page provides a natural shield against distraction.” (paragraph 9)
Not only does a print book naturally protect you from distraction, but it also allows the reader to flip through the pages of the book to search for a particular passage, or to mark the passages. Many times, without knowing, I find myself remembering where specific passages are located physically in the book. “ When we read, we unconsciously note the physical location of the information within a text and its spatial relationship to our location in the text a s a whole.” An e-book, however, does not have this flexibility that a print book does, making it much harder to navigate. “All sorts of modes of navigation and reading that are easy with printed books become more difficult with electronic books.” (paragraph 16)
Even if e-books didn’t have all of these consequences, I would still much rather read from printed books. Like Carr said, simply feeling that printed page in your hand tranquillizes the reader. This is why many times when people are stressed or need to get their minds of something they seek a book. The book would distract the person and calm them down. The bright screen of an e-book would stress the person even more, and they would have a higher chance of ending up on the web, instead of isolating themselves for a while. I also tend to find e-books boring, especially after using them for long periods of time. Books vary a lot more than e-books, even if it’s simple qualities like size, and texture. These simple characteristics draw each reader to the book that best fits them. Reading is also one of the few activities that exist that requires so little. All one needs is light, a book and the ability to read. This is why so many people cherish this activity and could not live with out it.
Even though I am strongly opposed to e-books I still find technology to be a resourceful tool in education. For example, it is much easier and efficient to type and edit papers on a computer than it is by hand. Besides Word Document, something that I rely on almost everyday is the online thesaurus and dictionary. It is much quicker to search the definition of a word online than it is to look for it in a large book. Technology is a great part of my education, however I would never want education to fully rely on technology.
