We’ve seen a ton of technological advancements in our lifespan. One of these being the emergence of E-Books and Audiobooks. It brings me to the question, will technology overrun physical books in the future? Will libraries main focus even be books in the future?
Personally, I can say that I listen to audiobooks way more than I actually read physical books. Audiobooks can be seen as an easier way to digest information, as you can listen to an audiobook while simultaneously doing other things physically. Schools have already started adopting tablets for students to read on. If this continues to grow into a more standardized way of reading, the future of paper books look bleak.
Even though E-Books and Audiobooks may have more of an ease-of-access, I wouldn’t want them to become the standard. It’s certainly hard to compete against a computer library of knowledge, yet there truly is nothing to compete with the sensation of reading a real book. There’s a whole industry that relies on paper books, many would lose their way of living due to that, which I wouldn’t want. But, we have seen this story before with newspapers. It seems that all newspaper companies have moved to online media as opposed to physical.
This leaves us with a golden opportunity. If you don’t want the future to be E-Reading only, buy more books. Any book that you’ve liked, maybe one that you have some sort of emotional tie to, you should support by buying. If we aren’t buying books anymore, there’s honestly no reason for them to still be printed. So, if the future you dream of still has physical books, support them!
