Paper or digital books? This is what people think (and the advantages of each)

For many, Book Day should always be. What an immense pleasure to sit in a comfortable armchair, by the window or under a dim lamp and enjoy the moment of immersion in what another person has conceived in his head and expressed in words. This situation can occur either with a physical book, with its pages (and that characteristic smell of paper), but also with an electronic book, each one defines its preferences. For most of the readers of El Confidencial, the option of reading on paper is better, although there are not a few who opt for electronic devices; According to a survey carried out by this medium, a third of readers prefer electronic devices, while another two thirds are more frequent with traditional books.

According to another study published by Amazon in 2021, readers tend to choose the digital format in situations such as commuting to work or waiting times, although more than half (55%) do so indistinctly in both formats; only 6% claimed to read only in digital format and 30% exclusively on paper. Among those who opt for electronic devices, the majority (59%) do so on an e-reader, while 41% do so on tablets.

What are the advantages of reading on paper?

Each option has its cons… and its many pros. Entering the world of physical books has many benefits, such as the already mentioned exceptional smell of books, especially the new ones, but many others: physical books do not need to undergo any system update, nor do they run out of battery and, like good wine, they improve with age. For the most nostalgic, reading paper books can take you to a certain moment in your life, remembering it and reliving it as if it were then, given that there are several studies that suggest that this format favors visual memory. The return to these memories also occurs when they are used as bookmarks, not the mythical purchased bookmarks (also), but tickets, papers with annotations or any document that you know how to associate to the moment in which you last read the work.

The books also have honorable ability to decorate the chosen place to keep it —and how many ways there are to order bookcases!— and, artistically speaking, the layout of paper books is much more versatile than in digital formats, which have far fewer illustrations. And what about the much mentioned planned obsolescence that paper books do not experience: books written two centuries ago are still readable, digital media vary, disappear, die.

And what about reading about digital device?

Many lovers of reading, previously only defenders of paper, are beginning to see the benefits of using digital devices to read. And one of the biggest and most widely agreed advantages of e-books is their ease of being transported: travelers, those who for whatever reason chain moves or those who do not have large spaces to store their works have in a small device your entire library. Thousands of books in one small device less than 200 grams. For example, with Kindle Unlimited you can read over a million titles in any e-book (a Kindle doesn’t have to be necessary) for very little money—in fact, you can choose to make a free trial for two months—, and this allows you to devour stories, novels or essays without having to accumulate large volumes.

But not everything is the space it occupies, but there are many other advantages: many devices allow you to send the underlined quotes directly (without ‘ruining’ the book) to an email, use less paper —in fact, there is currently a serious shortage of paper that puts publishers in a bind, unable to bring out new editions of books on paper and, if they do, with the consequent rise in price— and its versatility allows buy almost any work from anywhere on the planet, without having to look for a bookstore that has it wherever you are.

And the light! Reading at night is a pleasure for many, but not always the companion (a couple, a baby…) is able to fall asleep with a lamp turned on to be able to read; digital books allow in all cases to continue reading with the light off, thanks to the device’s own lighting. Another advantage of e-readers is that they can search, with a simple click, for specific words or phrases in the text, as well as underline or highlight paragraphs, make annotations and then delete it all again.

• How to choose the best eBook

The embarrassment is also a factor: you don’t always want to publicly display what you are reading, and with electronic readers it is possible to do so (who will recognize the cover of an e-book on the subway? Nobody sees it!), while another of the big factors to take into account is the price: digital books have a much lower price than physical books, even more so since The Government lowered the VAT on these products from 21% to 4% Two years ago. Whichever option one chooses, reading should always be a pleasure.

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