A lot of people say that reading e-books is convenient. I wanted to read a recently published book that wasn’t available in the library. So I decided to download it and experience the wonder of e-books. But I was in for a big surprise. I didn’t like it one bit. I found it uncomfortable. I had to keep pressing the down arrow to go to the next page, and that made me lose my connection with the book. As I was reading it on my laptop, I couldn’t take it everywhere and had to charge it frequently. I missed the feel, smell and weight of the book. I wasn’t able to connect with the characters as I was focusing on too many things.
Though e-books save money and energy, it is nothing compared to a real book. Sometimes, it makes me sad that people don’t value books anymore. Books have become so cheap. People think reading e-books is the new cool; personally, I feel it’s pure madness. In future, I fear that just like birds and animals are becoming extinct, our books too will become extinct. We will tell our children that we used to have stories written/printed on paper and we called it pages; the pages put together made a book. Our libraries will become just a museum of old and precious books.
Meghna is a Std X student at Chinmaya Vidyalaya.
