I disagree. For fiction, at least, used bookstores let you find some obscure stuff for cheap, and a book can pass through many hands and develop its own story along the way. Some of this stuff isn't available digitally.
I don't think ebooks are a definitive gain over physical. For fiction, I like being able to read them on my phone, and I like Kindle's X-Ray and other features on highlight (who is this character again??). Otherwise, books are damn good. For technical books, I vastly prefer paper, though.
The online ebook market is being swarmed by authors gaming the system. The number of them who split their book into a 12-book "series" that all managed to get released in a year, for instance. Tons of shovelware.
There's just also nothing like a good second-hand bookstore, with it's chill vibe and tactile product.
Finally, kids books should be physical, forever. I don't let my kids read on a tablet or other device, ever.
> Finally, kids books should be physical, forever. I don't let my kids read on a tablet or other device, ever.
That's an interesting position; would you mind commenting on why?
That said, if we're talking about things in the long-term, then neither old-fashion books nor tablets would seem relevant. Something like a good neural-lace would quickly obsolete both.
1) It's (likely) better for their eyes and motor development (turning pages is quite the skill to learn to do properly).
2) They outgrow them quickly, and you can move them down to their little cousin or a friend or whoever.
3) No distractions of being on a tablet or having access to apps or the web.
4) Way way cheaper, especially used.
That said, I pretty strictly restrict screen time, way more than even I was restricted as a kid, for a variety of reasons. Physical books are something they can look to for entertainment outside of that. Remote learning has made this worse, now that their schooling is online.
> 3) No distractions of being on a tablet or having access to apps or the web.
I hear you about this one! I don't understand how someone could concentrate on learning/reading when sugar rush in the form of apps and web browsing is available one click away...
One possibility to remove the negatives of the distractions but keep the benefits of the tablet (e.g. digital content, interactivity, video lessons) is to install an offline learning app like Kolibri, which allows you to pre-download all the content then turn off access to the internet. For example you can have the entire Khan Academy content offline (assuming 40G storage), then give them the tablet and be like browse all you want, since all the content will be educational and not youtube junk.
I don't think ebooks are a definitive gain over physical. For fiction, I like being able to read them on my phone, and I like Kindle's X-Ray and other features on highlight (who is this character again??). Otherwise, books are damn good. For technical books, I vastly prefer paper, though.
The online ebook market is being swarmed by authors gaming the system. The number of them who split their book into a 12-book "series" that all managed to get released in a year, for instance. Tons of shovelware.
There's just also nothing like a good second-hand bookstore, with it's chill vibe and tactile product.
Finally, kids books should be physical, forever. I don't let my kids read on a tablet or other device, ever.