Major Brands of Book Reading

Buying a book from a store, holding it in your hands, and flipping pages are the activities of reading which we have been doing for a long time since writing system was produced between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC (Wikipedia, History of Books, 2012, Origins section, par. 1). However, with the speedy development of technology, the concept of reading has changed since electronic books made their first appearance. However, in the past, e-books were not very popular to users, so today, whether they would be accepted and widely used by everyone, specifically students who consider reading takes most of their time in college, and whether they would take the place of the paper books? Nevertheless, the importance and the convenience of e-books are predominant advantages which we can't deny. E-books should be widely implemented to enhance the life of humanity.

E-book concept actually appeared early in our history, around the 1940s, when the first invention Index Thomisticus was made by Thomas Aquinas and Roberto Busa. However, until 1970, it was believed that the first invention of e-books was Dynabook, "a general-purpose portable personal computer capable of displaying books for reading," by Michael S. Hart. (Wikipedia, Ebooks, 2012, History section, para. 1 and para. 7-8). At that time, the brand new device did not receive much acclaim from consumer. For those who were not used to technology, they found it hard to do their reading on an electronic device, and some e-books required power to turn on for using. Nevertheless, if they can see the benefits that e-books can bring to them, they will have a second thought on their mind. With the modern reading method, people can save a lot of time from searching material, and finding a place to store physical books; cost will also become less of a worrisome factor.

Nowadays, a great number of people have realized that modern technology can be more than a book. E-reading method has also become an indispensable part of Americans' lives. Through a research done by The Pew Research Center's Internet and American's Life Project, the percent of consumers who purchase e-books has increased since last year, from 17% in mid-December, 2011, to 21% in February, 2012. Moreover, when the definition of reading on electric devices is broadened to cell phones, tablets, computers, as included in a survey done in December, 2011, 43% of American teenagers and adults have reported that they have been using those devices for reading magazines and journals (Rainie, Zickuhr, Purcell, Madden & Brenner, 2012, para. 1-2).

By using e-books in the correct way, readers will also be amazed at their convenience. When encountering challenging words, a reader will not have to spend a whole day to look up the definitions or carry a dictionary; all those processes can be done on that little device. In addition, whenever someone wants to write down a poignant saying or sentence, one does not have to take a small book and jot it down. With this modern method, it will only take a couple of clicks and every sentence that the person wants to mark will be highlighted. Additionally, mixed media included in modern books is another significant factor which constitutes the impressive ability of these devices. While enjoying a story, readers can see the pictures printed in the book, and can even listen to the theme song of the story being read, if it is available (Sasson, n.d). As a result, the interest of reading books, both paper and electronic, has increased dramatically among Americans: "The average reader of e-books says she has read 24 books in the past 12 months, compared with an average of 15 books by a non-e-book consumer" (Rainie et al., 2012, para. 7).

Furthermore, in the past, libraries were always a great source for students to look up information and material for their papers, but it usually took up too much time to find a book that students really needed in the middle of millions, and they maybe even needed more than one to complete the assignment. The electronic book can help them do that job in a more accelerated way. Students just need to type in key words for the information and it will perform the rest of the work. They do not have to go to libraries and spend hours flipping through a thousand pages; e-book can do that within only a few seconds as users only need to type keywords to find the information they need.

In addition to that, there was a study about the attitude of students towards e-books in Sawyer Business School of Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts by Mitchell Weisberg. In the study, students in a class were divided into six groups; the first five groups were assigned e-readers, and the last group was assigned a paper textbook for class's activities and homework. When the study ended, Weisberg realized that when the e-devices were first introduced to school, students

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