E-book: Is it better to be read than a printed book? (HZH)

E-book: Is it better to be read than a printed book?

Advances in technology have been growing day by day all over the world. An obvious example of such technological development is computer, mobile Internet and smartphones. Modern technology gets people's daily activities to depend more on electronic devices. Electronic banking, electronic publishing, electronic cash, electronic sport and so on are on everyone's lips nowadays. Likewise, books are published widely as electronic publishing and electronic books, shortened as e-books, and electronic magazines, shortened as e-magazines, become popular among not only light readers but also avid ones. Bringing lots of benefits to the book readers, reading printed books develop into reading electronic books, but on the other hand reading e-books make side effects for the readers too.

One major advantage of reading e-books is that it does reduce time consuming. In the olden days, especially before Internet and electronic devices were widely used, it used to be very difficult and time consuming to get and collect information. People had to go to the libraries and turn on many pages of the books to find the information they needed. However, nowadays, they can get the information they need through surfing the Internet at once. They can easily look for what they want by just clicking each topic described in electronic books. In addition, people have more chances to read books even when they have no money to buy the original printed books. Today most of the books are scanned and changed into electronic books and then they are uploaded to get downloaded in some websites. As a result, it is easy for a person to read a book even if he is not able to buy the original printed book because he is flat broke.

Nevertheless, reading electronic books has many side effects however it is widely used nowadays. The major or worst disadvantage of reading electronic books is that it badly affects our eyes. Blue light from smartphone and computer screens get people's eyes hurt.  Some people try to get around the blue-light problem by dimming their screens or wearing special glasses. But there is no proof that these work. What is more, reading electronic books make people hard to sleep. Light from electronic screens comes in all colors, but the blues are the worst. Blue light fools the brain into thinking it i`s daytime. When that happens, the body stops releasing a sleep hormone called melatonin. Melatonin is nature's way of helping us wind down and prepare for bed. The body starts releasing it a couple of hours before bedtime. Darkness helps trigger the release of melatonin; blue light delays it. In addition, electronic books are likely to be less appreciated than printed books because they can be got more easily than printed books. When a person has finished reading a printed book, he puts it somewhere like the bookshelf. As a result, it gets him to notice that book and read again as the second time. On the contrary, it is more difficult for him to notice, search and read the electronic books which have been saved in his computer or smartphone because he has already stored songs, movies, photos and others together in his smartphone memory.  Last but not the least, it is undeniable that reading a printed book by holding it in our hands gives us more pleasure than reading electronic books on electronic screens. 

Experience taught us that life is very fair. There are always two sides. Therefore, reading both electronic books and printed books have advantages and drawbacks. Taking everything into account, reading electronic books are efficient in finding what we want to read without delay. However, it is harmful to our eyes and it should not be used for long-term reading. Despite the fact that printed books probably may not be got easily and be high-priced, they are not bad for eyes and get easily noticed to read again. All in all, I think that printed books are better to be read than electronic books and it is impossible to replace completely the role of printed-books with electronic books.

Htet Zaw Htoo (SUOE)