As college students and people, everyone has read or reads books. From being children to young adults then to adults, books are an essential part of our lives. From being read books to by my parents to reading books for classes, books have always been an important part of how I learn and grow. However, the idea of books in my childhood is completely different from the idea of the modern-day book, with technology playing a huge role in the evolution of books.
For instance, the idea of physical books disappearing and being replaced by electronic or audio forms such as the Kindle or AudioBooks is an extremely scary yet interesting idea. The mere idea of technology being able to create such a large impact in changing the future to make access and comfort of reading and obtaining books is one that is extremely amazing and revolutionary.
However, the opposing idea of it completely replacing the physical copies of books and thus changing the culture of reading to one that is off a computer screen is one that is daunting. The original idea of the physical copy of books was to enjoy flipping the pages and reading from the words that come in different fonts and styles. Even in my classes, most of the required and recommended readings are almost all electronic and the idea of buying the physical copy of a book is scarce and rarely done because of the question of where to put the book after you are done with the class and how it takes up useless space. The future of books through enhanced technology has really put an impact, both negative and positive, into my learning experience.
I am extremely grateful for the easiness of reading and obtaining copies of the books and being able to have them out on my phone in mere seconds. However, I am afraid of the original experience becoming diminished and gone within seconds. Because I grew up reading books and enjoying the artworks and became comfortable with the idea of having a sense of touch and feel as to what I am reading, every electronic copy of a book that I used to read and loved reading is such a scary thing.
I am not saying that we should completely get rid of electronic or audio copies of books, but we should take some action into saving the physical copy of books and the original culture of reading books. Just like this, to this day, I still buy physical copies of books and enjoy reading them in my free time instead of downloading the electronic copy or just listening to an audiobook.