Compare paper book and e‑book

The vari­ety and func­tion­al­i­ty of elec­tron­ic devices has led to the grad­ual replace­ment of tra­di­tion­al paper books. Experts pre­dict a grad­ual “dying” of the print­ing busi­ness. Is it true? To answer this ques­tion, it is worth under­stand­ing the fea­tures of both prod­ucts and under­stand­ing which is bet­ter: an e‑book or a paper one? Our experts have fig­ured it out.

Aesthetics and benefits of paper books

With the advent of elec­tron­ic read­ing devices, paper ones grad­u­al­ly began to go into obliv­ion, because it is much eas­i­er to down­load sev­er­al dozen works on one device and enjoy a lit­er­ary work any­where. But a paper book, after all, is some­thing more than just a source of infor­ma­tion. This is some­thing bewitch­ing. Most users rec­og­nize that ordi­nary paper books have a charm, an aes­thet­ic that allows them to enjoy the read­ing process.

Experts say that infor­ma­tion gleaned from a paper book is absorbed much bet­ter than from an elec­tron­ic one. It’s all about the pecu­liar­i­ties of human per­cep­tion: the brain receives a lot of new infor­ma­tion every day and uses var­i­ous “anchors” to fix the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion.

When it comes to a paper book, tan­gi­ble fac­tors act as such “anchors”: cov­er, page rus­tle, mar­gin­al notes, etc. An elec­tron­ic device, in fact, is just a face­less set of char­ac­ters. The time spent read­ing the elec­tron­ic ver­sion is noth­ing com­pared to the plea­sure of own­ing a book made of paper.

Convenience and functionality of e‑books

The elec­tron­ic for­mat at one time became almost a sen­sa­tion, which did not have the best effect on book print­ing, since many con­sumers imme­di­ate­ly pre­ferred the first option. Yes, you can’t argue with the prac­ti­cal­i­ty and com­fort of using e‑books. You can eas­i­ly take it with you on a busi­ness trip or just read an inter­est­ing work on the way to work.

In addi­tion, it is impor­tant to be able to read sev­er­al books at once in par­al­lel (art books, for advanced train­ing, expand­ing knowl­edge about the world, etc.): it is enough to down­load the elec­tron­ic ver­sion of the book to the pur­chased device in any con­ve­nient for­mat and enjoy read­ing in any weath­er, any­where and in any time. After all, there is no con­nec­tion to the pres­ence of light­ing, etc.

The e‑book is dis­tin­guished by its com­pact size, light weight and the pres­ence of addi­tion­al options that help improve read­ing com­fort (for exam­ple, spe­cial fonts, screen back­light, etc.).

Comparative characteristics

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, elec­tron­ic devices, after all, are grad­u­al­ly replac­ing clas­si­cal print­ing. Our experts com­pared the two prod­ucts on a num­ber of key cri­te­ria to see if e‑books are tru­ly supe­ri­or to paper books.

Availability

E‑books are def­i­nite­ly more acces­si­ble and prac­ti­cal. Con­nois­seurs of qual­i­ty read­ing know first­hand about the con­sid­er­able cost of paper books, because the price of indi­vid­ual copies can reach sev­er­al thou­sand rubles. But an elec­tron­ic device makes it pos­si­ble to read many works for free: just down­load them from the Inter­net. In addi­tion, its price is not so great. And with reg­u­lar read­ing (when com­pared with the price of paper options), buy­ing a device will pay off in a cou­ple of months.

Acces­si­bil­i­ty of per­cep­tion of infor­ma­tion also can­not be dis­count­ed. Many mod­els of elec­tron­ic devices make it pos­si­ble not only to read, but to lis­ten to books, play­ing them in audio mode, which is very con­ve­nient in case your hands are busy, for exam­ple, with cook­ing, but you want to enjoy pleas­ant read­ing, or in the process of work­ing or study­ing, you need to quick­ly famil­iar­ize your­self with addi­tion­al mate­r­i­al.

ON A NOTE. When choos­ing an e‑book, you need to pay atten­tion to two points: the dis­charge rate of the device (an impor­tant fac­tor for those who read a lot) and sup­port­ed for­mats (some users are unpleas­ant­ly sur­prised after the pur­chase to find out that the device does not rec­og­nize cer­tain for­mats).

Safety

The impact of a book on vision is an impor­tant point, since the plea­sure of read­ing is incom­pa­ra­ble with the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of health. In terms of secu­ri­ty, both paper and elec­tron­ic ver­sions are iden­ti­cal. Dig­i­tized text is dis­played on a dim LCD screen, often equipped with an anti-reflec­tive effect, there­by reduc­ing eye strain dur­ing read­ing.

ON A NOTE. When buy­ing an elec­tron­ic device, it is impor­tant to pay atten­tion to the type of its dis­play: unlike the LED vari­ety, the E‑Ink screen does not adverse­ly affect the eyes. And when choos­ing a book, it is worth con­sid­er­ing the pecu­liar­i­ties of its smell, since it caus­es sneez­ing or aller­gies in some peo­ple (it is impor­tant to imme­di­ate­ly pay atten­tion to this while hold­ing the print­ed prod­uct in your hands).

Environmental friendliness

Since wood is known to be used in the man­u­fac­ture of print­ed mate­ri­als, many are switch­ing to an elec­tron­ic alter­na­tive in an attempt to pro­tect nat­ur­al resources. On the oth­er hand, plas­tic is used in the man­u­fac­ture of dig­i­tized prod­ucts, which does not have the best effect on the envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion in the world, because the num­ber of plas­tic prod­ucts pro­duced in gen­er­al annu­al­ly reach­es colos­sal pro­por­tions.

Ease of use

If we talk about prac­ti­cal­i­ty, then, of course, the dig­i­tized options sim­ply have no equal. Espe­cial­ly when it comes to a long busi­ness trip or a trip: you don’t have to stock up on sev­er­al books, weigh­ing down your things and both­er­ing your­self with the need to hold an often dif­fi­cult prod­uct in your hands.

But e‑books are more prac­ti­cal:

1. Com­pact — unlike print­ed ver­sions, they are light in weight and dimen­sions, and the need for recharg­ing is eas­i­ly solved by pur­chas­ing a portable bat­tery.

2. Vari­able — when choos­ing the right prod­uct, you can choose the option to your taste: not only the size, but also the design, col­or, etc. And by adding a styl­ish case to the pur­chase, you can give the prod­uct an exquis­ite look that is not infe­ri­or to the cov­er of a print­ed pub­li­ca­tion.

3. Ergonom­ic — no need to spend time con­stant­ly turn­ing pages — light touch­es of the screen with your fin­ger are enough.

4. Inde­pen­dent of day­light — an indis­pens­able option for trips where there is no way to pro­vide light­ing (for exam­ple, on a train or on vaca­tion in the for­est). If the back­light is not pro­vid­ed in the device, the prob­lem can be eas­i­ly solved using a Pock­et­Book flash­light.

Individual factors

We are talk­ing about those moments that do not play a role for the major­i­ty, but are very impor­tant for some. It may be the com­fort of using a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct. For exam­ple, some con­sumers enjoy read­ing, rustling “live” pages and smelling paper, and noth­ing can replace this. Oth­ers pre­fer the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of an elec­tron­ic device, and some­one does not like it for an unpleas­ant fea­ture: if a file is acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed (espe­cial­ly if it is an impor­tant one), it can no longer be restored.