E-book VS Printed Book

Amazon.com which is the famous online book selling site, has released the International Version of Kindle during the Christmas season in the year 2009, while Apple Ipad had launched on April 2010 (Cornwall 2010). These have seriously brought down the demand of the virtual book among the society. The published of the electronic or eBook has been met with the fierce resistance by the all the book lovers. However, in the past few months, many publishers around the world have come to realized that the book industry is just as the music and movie industry, they do not get to survive if they don not go digital (Cornwall 2010). There is a prediction out there that saying up to 50 per cent of books will be sold in digital form in the future and we may need to pay for it. 

Kindle and Apple ipad are electronic book readers that allow us to download and read the books by using the device (Kindle port 2009). Free downloading for the first chapter of a book allows readers to decide whether to purchase the book or not. Although the popularity of E-books are raising nowadays, in my opinion, I believe the printed books will still exist due to the fact that different audience have different likings on how they get their information. 

E-book and Printed book:

The target audience for the digital book and printed book is different. The older generation would prefer the printed book as they do not know much about the Internet and technology. Books are still popular demand for the elderly. Printed books provide bigger font that make it easy for those elderly to read. Penman (1998) once said, older people prefer to read in A4 size paper with large fonts. Another reason will be, the older people rather spent time on reading a physical book than read the book in front of the computer or with a small device on hand. 

Printed book- Preferable by most of the elderly as it provides bigger fonts and physical texture.

(Source: SmashingMagazine 2007)

On the other hand, the younger generation like spent more time on facing computer, thus, they will sure prefer the new media which is the e-book. As penman (1998) stated that younger generation prefer a pocket size book so that they could fit it in their pocket and bring it to anywhere they want. They prefer to e-book compare to the virtual as it is more convenience. There could easily find the book online anytime even its in the middle of night. However, books are also demand from this younger generation as new publications cannot be obtain in e-book form.

Kindle VS Ipad

(Sources: mariosundar.wordpress 2007)

 

As for the young children, Richards (2000) have listed down few reasons why e-book should be read to the young children.

• E-books are interactive. It allows the parents to interact with their kids and teach them to become familiar with the workings of the computer.
• Attractive colours and pictures on the computer screen increase the learning process.
• Most school now used computers to teach in the classroom. Thus, teaching children with the e-books will give them a head start before they enter school.
• E-books are imperishable. The device such as ipad and kindle can last for decades. It can be pass to the next genetation.
• E-books are eco friendly, they do not need papers.

 Acceptance of E-book by the public:

Due to the advanced technology, people are slowly adopt to E-book. E-book is very convenience in searching a book. Just by typing the key term in e-book, it will lead you to the page that contains the key term and the term will be highlighted. However, according to Mercieca (2004), printed books easier for students to refer to their notes and it allows students to highlighted literally on it. According to Naughton (2006), the growth of Internet changes our daily habit in a way that it forces the readers to read online and so, accept e-book. 

According to Mercieca (2004), based on the design issue, reading process on screen would become 25% to 40% slower than from the virtual book. E-book makes the readers tend to skim read on the screen instead of reading the content. In conclusion, choosing between e-book and printed book, we already choose the e-book. However, I still believe in printed books as better technology does not means to be better communication (Schriver 1997). 

References:

• Carnwall, D 2010, 'E-books populariry on the rise', Australian Broadcasting Corporation, viewed 14th June 2010, <http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2849989.htm>.
• Mercieca, P 2004, 'E-book acceptance: what will make users read on screen?',viewed 14th June 2010, <http://www.google.com.hk/search?q='E-book+acceptance:+what+will+make+users+read+on+screen&client=pub-1895553756377946&channel=9593578544&forid=1&prog=aff&hl=zh-CN>.
• Naughton, J 2006, 'Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem', University of Oxford, viewed 14th June 2010, <http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/.../blogging.pdf>.
• Penman, R 1998, 'Document structures and readers' habits', Communication news, vol 11, no. 2, pp. 1 & 10-11.
• Richards, T 2000, '5 Reasons to read ebooks to young children', viewed 14th June 2010, <http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Reasons-to-Read-eBooks-to-Young-Children&id=3406890>.
• Schriver, K.A. 1997, 'Chap 6: The interplay of words and pictures', Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, pp. 361-441, Wiley Computer Publishing, New York.
• What is Kindle? 2009, Kindle Port, viewed 14th June 2010, < http://kindleport.com/What-is-Kindle-.html>.