Final thoughts

Even though eBooks, eLibraries, the Kindle, the iPad and so on are so revolutionary, I'm still not sold. I've grown up; listening to LP's, reading my parents' old books, writing with a pen and paper... you can't ask me to give them up. Call me close-minded but I think we are losing some valuable by turning everything into digital format. Let's take eBooks for example, and I know it may seem like you heard this millions of times before but the truth is this is what great about books: the smell of them, the feel of them, the fact that you could pass them on to siblings, friends or family, the fact that they grow old with you, you can mark them, write on them, and such. Things like this you can do on a eBook but the palpability of books is just the best. That last characteristic is what I love most about hard copy books, I just have an emotional attachment to the fact that I can touch and feel my book. To give you a further example of this, I can't ever read anything of a certain length or something that I need to analyze on a screen; I have to have in my hands, to touch it, to be able to physically do something to it. To be perfectly honest nothing digital will ever reach the tangibility and quality of the traditional. Just so you know, I do love technology but to some extent and I do not think, I will not be a eBook owner anytime soon because I love Books too much but I've got to say the iPad is growing on me and I can see myself reading the New York Times or a magazine on it because it is way more convenient that having a bunch of them lying around at your house. Digital life is just what is going on right now and if anything it's going to keep getting digital so finding balance between technology and everything else is what people will need to do.