I interviewed at a print on demand book binding automation shop about five years ago. Naturally one of the topics was the sustainability of paper media on short and long terms. I'll be the first to admit that the interviewer had a vested interest in selling the idea that paper books aren't going away any time soon, but the argument was compelling.
As long as children are taught to read on paper books, we will have an emotional connection to the printed page.
I've taught my children to read first using board books and then moving on to paperbacks. Printed books are uniquely suited as teaching materials for children. They are robust to dropping, food spills, and drink spills (if you're quick to react). Losing one book doesn't imply the loss of the whole library.
Most of my kids' book reading takes place at home so the portability afforded by e-readers is not a concern. Children love repetition and reading the same book over and over helps them internalize the information so being able to carry around thousands of books electronically isn't a use case for them.
Maybe some parents are teaching their kids to read on tablets or e-readers. If so, I'd love to hear your experience and the pros and cons.
Books spawn a similar hierarchy then electronical devices -- there are colouring books, crossword puzzle books, children's books, comic books, textbooks, academic books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, all kind of booklets -- just to name a very few! There is no way all of them are magically replaced by their electronical counterparts, namely eBooks, tablets, smartphones, notebooks or classical workstations.
Many of the example books are "as alive" as always because they are just cheap -- such as many children's books, puzzles and colouring books. Nothing electronical can be that cheap.
I guess mostly the expensive books, such as in academia, reference manuals or encyclopiedias are replaced more and more by their electronic counterpart. But even there, it's a matter of taste.
I will give to you toddler picture / teething books. But for every other item on that list “there is an app for that.” Atlases for example don’t compare to google maps.
As to price, Tablets are already going below 50$. Once you start talking about multiple books electronics quickly became cheaper.
PS: Coloring apps can be printed out, which does not save on paper but still develops fine motor skills.
There are also apps for toddler books. If it's not about the price or usage scenario (pro tip: Don't give your electronic device to your toddler), there is still the overall feeling of a book. The comparison between a scrollable, zoomable digital map to a traditional atlas is the perfect example. For recreational purposes, I love the beautiful art and feeling of large and bulky picture books and atlases. Even a 12" IPad doesn't come close to that feeling.
As far as I'm concerned, trees are a renewable resource... we can (and do) plant and grow more. Clear-cutting for farming is the biggest issue with tree loss, and that's pretty much outside the US. Not paper production. Growing trees takes carbon out of the atmosphere, using it and burying it making room for new trees is not a bad thing.
Beyond this, an actual book gives you a lot more context to help remember things... the feel, shape and even the physically relative position of a given page vs the book as a whole. You lose that when you go digital. You also tend to be tethered to some DRM scheme that can take your books away.
> You can't do anything with them except read (linearly).
And write on them, scribble in them, underline them, draw in their margins, use colored pens and pencils and highlighters, check the index, flip through them, give them to anyone with your annotations and get them back with theirs, rip pages out of them, sew them back together, rebind them, burn them, store them for thousands of years without electricity or maintenance in no higher technology than a clay jar (assuming acid free paper!), hold them upside down and learn to read them that way, stop doors and weigh down papers on a desk with them, or just admire them on a bookshelf.
But yes, the most obvious thing you can do with them is simply to read them linearly, and this lack of frivolity is by far the best thing about them.
Old books now seem to be broken to me. You can't do anything
with them except read (linearly)
At times this is a plus too. While reading online many a times I get distracted by some reference and go tangential looking for more details on that than moving on with the book.
The „trick“ I use is I‘m offline by default and have to „turn the internet on“ on most devices (except the phone). Been doing thst for 8 years now, works pretty well.
What you're describing is functional attachment. Emotionally, how would you feel if all of the printed books in the world were to disappear today? Would you miss them?
I don‘t think I would. I just don‘t see the point anymore. Don‘t get me wrong, I once was a romantic too! :) I used to spend entire afternoons after school in the bookstore or libraries and had a pretty good library. Now when I see paper books I groan a little. Too heavy, too much material/waste, too impractical, and most of all kind of fusty. What‘s the point.
Trees are a renewable resource... we can, and do grow more when they're used for paper. Or do you worry about running out of lettuce or carrots?
I get that it may be impractical for some... for some of us, we have a VERY hard time remembering long form content without the additional context a physical book provides. I simply cannot hold over 200 or so pages of content without that extra content... I get completely lost most of the time around page 50 in an eReader. I don't know how to describe it better. I can eat through 800 pages or so of a highly technical book in a weekend. I'm lucky if I can get through 100 pages on an eReader in that same time-frame.
Why do I get as irritated by this? Because, I'm not trying to stop the production of eReaders, which do have a LOT of actual environmental waste, compared to a few thousand books.
I don‘t have an opinion on the macro picture of whether paper books are a net drag or benefit to the environment because I haven‘t done the math. I was only responding to OP that being taught on paper books somehow means lifelong attachment. I grew up in a paper world and like I said now even have „negative attachment“ to paper. That‘s one counterexample, and I know a few others. Soclearly it‘s not a general truth.
This 100%! Kids are on the iPads all the time but for games mostly. And they do repeat a lot of steps to pick up the tricks and trade of the game they are on. I mean the new tech more than covers all of the requirement. IMO, it is the education machinery that is not ready for change yet. Or may be it pays more to keep things the way they are.
As long as children are taught to read on paper books, we will have an emotional connection to the printed page.
I've taught my children to read first using board books and then moving on to paperbacks. Printed books are uniquely suited as teaching materials for children. They are robust to dropping, food spills, and drink spills (if you're quick to react). Losing one book doesn't imply the loss of the whole library.
Most of my kids' book reading takes place at home so the portability afforded by e-readers is not a concern. Children love repetition and reading the same book over and over helps them internalize the information so being able to carry around thousands of books electronically isn't a use case for them.
Maybe some parents are teaching their kids to read on tablets or e-readers. If so, I'd love to hear your experience and the pros and cons.