Breaking the Shackles of Time

Here’s an adventure! There’s so much excitement, intense, and with mystery unfolding
and growing suspense. I want to bring you to the world beyond the strange doors and
explore those ice blasts of words, such staggering peace, enormous laughter and many
blinding bright lights splashing all over pages. Why do we need to open those wonders
of reading? Reading has at all times and in all ages been source of knowledge,
happiness, pleasure and even moral courage. In today’s world with so much more to
know and to learn and also the need for conscious effort to conquer the divisive forces,
the importance of reading has increased. It started out with paper books or what we
can call it as ‘traditional books’ and as the wave of publishing changes, we have the
‘modern books’ or known as virtual books that we can just keep it in our pocket,
portable and flexible. What do you think is the best way to use?

We live in a technology-driven society today. Technology has transformed the way we

do things and the way we live. Reading is no exception to it. So why are people more
driven towards reading digitally today and why do some still find comfort in holding a
paperback? How are these two mediums different? Let’s find out. Paper printed books
and eBooks has their own differences. However, it will always be into the discretion of
the reader whether or not to use either materials or just one of them. For generations,
we have used printed book to get our information from and to read for pleasure
whenever you have some spare time. As technology started advancing, there was a
new and convenient way of reading books by an electronic devise without going to a
bookstore. Even though eBooks are so convenient, it has many disadvantages such as it
requires power to charge the electronic devise, it can easily break when the electronic
devise is accidentally dropped onto the ground, and you need an application on your
electronic device that allows you to purchase and read eBooks. Printed books also have
its disadvantages such as the pages in the book can easily get destroyed or ripped, and
it can gather up dust if the book is not used for a long time.

During our immersion, the results showed that a lot of students preferred to use printed
books. The students reported that print was aesthetically more enjoyable, saying things
such as “I like the smell of paper.” What’s more, print gave them a sense of where they
were in the book – they could “see” and “feel” where they were in the text. Screens
make us read slower, retain lesser information, and also learn less deeply. Probably this
is the reason most of the students choose to print out their soft copy notes into a print
material. This allows them to look at the text, highlight the important parts. Paper book
is more durable and some readers love to read books traditionally because they get the
feeling of reading and flipping through the pages of book itself. However there were
also students who preferred having e-books, we can format the fonts and styles
according to our preferences. On paper books, their fonts and styles have been set and
sometimes their fonts are too small to read especially by the older generation who
mostly faced the problem of having bad eyesight. In addition, for paper books adequate
source of light are needed in order to read it. Without light, reading the printed book
may cause eye strain due to the intense use of eyes. I personally believe it’s up to the
individual to decide whether to read from a printed book or from an electronic devise. I
have tried and tested both methods of reading and I personally prefer the classic
printed books. The reason being is that I like to physically touch and smell a new book
and I generate good feelings from that experience and I just do not experience the
same thing when I read a new eBook. An eBook may be convenient to use and carry
around with you. However, the experience of having a physical copy of a book is
amazing in its self.

In conclusion, e-books are more flexible but regrettably they do not last longer compare
to paper books. Paper books can last longer from five to five thousand years or more
but e-books, they depend on the models and technology at that time. On contrary, e-
books are better than paper books as they have provided readers with lights and easy
to read anywhere and anytime. Therefore, which one is more worth to buy? It is on
your choice. Whether you are curled up on your couch with a book or reading
something on your laptop or iPad, maybe it is time to start acknowledging both these
mediums as different yet complementary interfaces. Screens don’t have to replace
books, but each can continue to exist in peaceful harmony. After all, aren’t we all on a
journey of finding the right balance between reading on screens and reading on paper?
Learning how to strike the perfect balance between the two could be a helpful exercise.
Thus, deep reading that requires close reading and nonlinear reading that does not
need to be too immersive can be balanced.

Margarette Rose C. Baynosa