1 Introduction Since the discovery of writing, it was one of the most important things the human have ever discovered. Writing allowed people to transform their own experience of life, how to face the nature and it made the civilization more cumulative. Writing was a turning point in the history of human. The first human used the walls of caves as a way of saving the information by drawing things that convey a meaning. Later on, people started to use writing instead of general symbols to transfer meaning in order to organize the consumption of goods in the first formed cities. In other words, we can say that writing is a sign of civilization. While people in the east used stone boards to write, people in Egypt used papyrus coils; however, people in the Far East invented a new better way to write and save the human civilization records to the next generations. They invented papers. The rest of the world did not know about this invention until Muslims conquered the Far East and then they spread this invention to the whole world. Paper saved its place as the only way to transfer information among ages from the 7th century until the middle of the 20th century when computers were invented. By the invention of computers, new era of saving and transferring information started. People do not need printed papers, because computers are doing the mission. Governments started to abandon the usage of papers and moved to be digital governments. All transactions of Banks, schools, hospitals are being digitalized. The real question now, in this completely new era of digitalization, does it affect how people read books, magazines, newspapers and research journals or just does it with the formal transactions?
Transcript
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Introduction
Since the discovery of writing, it was one of the most important things the human
have ever discovered. Writing allowed people to transform their own experience of life,
how to face the nature and it made the civilization more cumulative. Writing was a
turning point in the history of human. The first human used the walls of caves as a way of
saving the information by drawing things that convey a meaning.
Later on, people started to use writing instead of general symbols to transfer
meaning in order to organize the consumption of goods in the first formed cities. In other
words, we can say that writing is a sign of civilization. While people in the east used
stone boards to write, people in Egypt used papyrus coils; however, people in the Far
East invented a new better way to write and save the human civilization records to the
next generations. They invented papers. The rest of the world did not know about this
invention until Muslims conquered the Far East and then they spread this invention to the
whole world.
Paper saved its place as the only way to transfer information among ages from the
7th century until the middle of the 20th century when computers were invented. By the
invention of computers, new era of saving and transferring information started. People do
not need printed papers, because computers are doing the mission. Governments started
to abandon the usage of papers and moved to be digital governments. All transactions of
Banks, schools, hospitals are being digitalized. The real question now, in this completely
new era of digitalization, does it affect how people read books, magazines, newspapers
and research journals or just does it with the formal transactions?
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Need of this study:
Most of studies investigated this topic from emotional or analytical point of view.
Some studies saw it as it another symptoms of new era where the printed words are
dumped to the digital ones. In this study, the researcher investigates the new phenomenon
under the umbrella of modernism, medicine and importance; to show how modernism
affected the way we read and who medicine advises us to orient our reading toward the
printed books.
The aim of this study:
The researcher in this study tries to answer the question, “Why are printed books
better than eBooks?” by trying to show the bad side effects of eBooks reading and how
are they harming the reader in the health and other levels. In addition, the researcher
questionnaires a random sample of readers to ask them whether they prefer eBooks
reading or printed books reading to make a solid ground for the study to be built on.
Limitations of this study:
The study is limited to 100 random samples of readers. Also, the study is limited to
readers from Gaza Strip.
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Hypothesis:
Printed books are better than eBooks.
Literature investigation:
Many researchers conducted different studies and articles to investigate the
emergence of eBooks and how they did affect people’ reading behavior worldwide. For
example, Alian (2010) summarized three reasons and considered them as axioms reasons
for the emergence of electronic libraries. First, the conventional libraries, which depends
on printed books, are moving towards extinction. Second, As long as the information is
available, the beneficiary does not care about the sources and how they are served. Third,
the researchers' needs are limitless.
Littman and Connaway (2004) said:
Over the past several years, a large number of libraries have begun to offer
electronic books (e-books) to their patrons. The e-books provided to patrons
are generally digital versions of books that also appear in print. They contain
the same content as the print books, but are delivered in a different format. E-
books offer a number of advantages over their print brethren for both the
patron and the library. For the patron, e-books offer 24/7 availability, remote
access outside the physical library, full text searching, and copying and
pasting of text and images. For the library, e-books require no shelf space or
re-shelving and are never lost, damaged, stolen, or overdue. (PP 256-262)
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Bushak (2015) concluded three reasons to convince the reader why to ditch E-
books to printed books. First, Readers who use E-Readers were less competent in
recalling the plot and events in the book than those who used paperbacks. Second,
reading an E-book before bed lessened the production of an important sleep hormone
known as melatonin. As a result, people took much longer to fall asleep, experienced less
deep sleep, and were more fatigued in the morning. Third, when researchers measured
heart rate and muscle tension, they found that people relaxed just six minutes into
reading, but reading on a device might cancel out this effect, and may even affect your
stress levels negatively.
Jasim (2009) started with defining E-library as information authority that absorbs
the new technology available in the age of electronics to support its ability to provide
service saying that the e-library is the one with most of its sources are electronic items
like CDs or websites; some of its sources may be conventional sources (paper). After
that, he defined the Hybrid libraries as full integration between the conventional libraries
and the E-libraries. Where there is a balance between the usage of the eBooks and printed
books. Later on, the author defined the online libraries as libraries that provides its
services and sources to the researchers by providing them with the information stored in
the banks' systems and the readable databases automatically through instant recovery
system using a computer. He added later that we could use the terminal stations instead of
computers. Then, the author defined the virtual libraries as electronic books without hard
copies. Finally, the digital libraries were defined as a website or the intellectual
production stored on a computer.
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Saleem (2011) conducted a study, which includes 1049 samples from the
universities students during 2009-2010 randomly selected. The study asked questions
about the students’ usage of eBooks and printed books and their preferences. The
researcher asked the students three questions: 1- Do you prefer eBooks or printed books.
2- What do you read more eBooks or printed books. 3- List why do you prefer each one.
According to the results, most of the students chose that they prefer printed books over
eBooks but at the same time, most of them read eBooks more than printed books. The
researcher believed that the contrast in the results was for different reasons.
First, printed books are more expensive than eBooks. Most of the students have no
time to work and study at the same time and their budget can barely fit their needs as
youth people. Yes, printed books are best for them and more comfortable but it cost
more. Therefore, the students will save their money for themselves and read eBooks
while if there is any chance to buy printed books without any cost, they will buy it.
Second, eBooks are easy to carry everywhere for they have no weight. You can
carry a whole library in your tablet or smart phone but you cannot put more than five or
six printed books in your back-bag.
Third, for their study and homework, eBooks reading made it is easy to copy, paste
and share ad search for information online. Fourth and finally, it is easier to reach the
content using the linked content table and it is easy to search for any words in the
document without any difficulties.
For the third questions, the students who preferred printed books listed that it was
because they can write on them, they can highlight the lines they liked, they can have a
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direct memory with the book, it can be gifted, they can write a dedication to anybody, it
can be borrowed and some other emotional stuff. Students who preferred eBooks listed
that was because of their light weight, it do not cost a lot of money, they do not need to
occupy a place they need in their room, easy to search, to look for words in the dictionary
and surf online while reading and it is better for their purposes as students.
Crum (2015) collected various studies about printed books and eBooks and he
came out with nine different studies that will make you change your mind about the
future of eBooks. If you ever thought printed books are dying and eBooks are uprising,
then you need to change your thoughts. Firstly, Younger people are more likely to believe
that there is useful information that is only available offline. Secondly, Students are more
likely to buy physical textbooks. Thirdly, Students opt for physical copies of humanities
books, even when digital versions are available for free. Fourthly, this is not just true of
textbooks. Teens prefer printed books for personal use, too. Fifthly, Students do not
connect emotionally with on-screen texts. Sixthly, teens comprehend less of the
information presented in digital books. Seventhly, it is not just students opting for print.
Parents and kids prefer to read physical books together, too. Eighthly, because eBooks
can negatively affect your sleep. Ninthly and finally, it is hard to avoid multitasking
while reading digital books.
Angier (2014) thinks that eBooks are quicker to obtain, more easily updated and
upgraded, less place to be occupied, eBooks do not use up trees, more portable, their
references can be easily hot-linked and they are more than books because you can search
online and use some branding apps at the same time.
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Kozlowski (2014) discussed why E-books are better than printed books. The writer
says that buying eBooks make a ton of sense because eBooks have a table of content
connected directly to the topics. Highlights and annotations are easier since they can be
with one button. The direct use of dictionaries and translators, the font of the text can be
magnified or minimized. The one can buy and download eBooks while he is in his
pajamas and no trees to be cut to make a book finally. EBooks are 100% environmental.
Franco (2013) offered a small comparison between printed books and E-books
saying that, "the debates about eBooks and printed books are in the height of the internet
industry these days." Then she compared between the two types with an obvious bias
toward printed books.
Mims (2011) said that E-books are expensive and not available for everyone, and
supported what he said with asking, "Could Abraham Lincoln have become president of
the United States in a world in which poor children lack access to physical books?" He
cleared his point with other reasons as e-books puts additional barriers between readers
and knowledge. Some of those barriers are the consist of Digital Rights Management and
other attempts to use intellectual property laws as a kind of rent-seeking, but others are
more subtle. The writer explained, "Ebooks cannot be loaned or resold. They cannot be
gifted, nor discovered on a trip through the shelves of a friend or the local library. They
cannot be re-bound and, unlike all the rediscovered works that literally gave birth to the
Renaissance, they will not last for centuries."
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Methodology
The type of the research
The research is a quantitative one in which the researcher is looking for the
interests of the readers about their reading type preferences and then he gives some
advices about it.
Sample and data collection
The researcher uses an online questionnaire, which he posts in a reading group on
Facebook. A hundred male and female readers of various ages and interests submit the
questionnaire whom the researcher does not know. They respond on his post rather than
being selected. The questionnaire consists of six objective questions. The first and the
second questions are taken from previous research paper (Saleem 2011). The rest of the
questionnaire is from the researcher’s own.
Procedure
In the first semester of 2015, the researcher chose the topic to start working on the
research paper. At first, he took his college student opinion about changing the topic of
the paper to be more specified from a general comparison between the two kinds of
reading to show the harms of eBooks reading and the benefits of printed books reading.
As long as he knew what he want to do the research about, he surfed for online resources
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and went to the university library for hardcopy resources. Once he collected the required
resources, the researcher started working on the questionnaire.
The researcher took the first two questions from a research paper conducted by
Saleem (2011), and the rest of questions was form the experience of the researcher in
reading. After that, the researcher asked one of his colleges who is studying his MA
degree in translation to give him his opinion about the questionnaire. His friend advised
him to delete the last question because it was like interfering with the responder answer
and so did the researcher. Since most the questions of the questionnaire are yes/no
questions except for the first two; the researcher divided the questionnaire into two
sections, Yes/No and eBooks/Printed books. Finally, he posted an online questionnaire
on a reading group on Facebook. Exactly, One hundred male and female readers of
various ages and interests responded to his post. In the post, the researcher debriefed the
readers in the group about the purpose and objectives of the questionnaire. He made it
clear that the questionnaire will stay confidential and used only for research purposes,
asking them not to reveal any information about their identities.
Results
The researcher analyzes the results of the questionnaire in his own since all the
questions are objective and there is no need for another analyst to recheck the answers
after him.
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The results of the first section
Q2 Q1
% NO. % NO.
82% 82 22% 22 eBooks
18% 18 78% 78 Printed Books
As shown in the table above, 78% of the participants chose that they prefer printed
books reading over eBooks reading whereas, surprisingly, 82% of the same participants
said that they read eBooks more than printed books.
The results of the second section
Q4 Q3 Q2 Q1
% NO. % % % NO. % NO.
77% 77 62% 62% 56% 56 07% 7 Yes
23% 23 38% 38% 44% 44 93% 93 No
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It is obvious that most of the readers pick their books without caring if this type of
reading or the behavior or habit is useful or not, medically speaking as shown in the
results that just 7% of the reader have medical concerns when 93% do not have any.
7%
93%
Are there any medical concerns for your choice?
Yes
No
56%
44%
Does the size of the book affect the type of reading?
Yes
No
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Regarding the second question, more than half of the reader sees that the size of the
book whether it is big or small affects their type of reading where 56% of them said so.
About the third questions, the majority of the readers chooses that the type of the
book affect the type of reading where 62% said that if the books is educational or has any
relation to the university and studying, they prefer to read it online.
62%
38%
Does the type of the book affect the type of reading?
Yes
No
77%
23%
If you have a lot of money and the printed books have the same price as eBooks, will you stop eBooks reading?
Yes
No
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Reaching for the fifth question, 77% of the reader says that of the printed books
are not expensive anymore and the can handle the money problem they will buy printed
books and stop the E-reading at all. This can show and explain the contradiction in the
answers of the first questions in the first section.
Discussion
The first section
It is surprising to find that 78% of the participants still prefer printed books
reading in the age of technology and digitalization. Also, it is amazing to see that the
invasion of smartphones, tablets and laptops did not change the preference of the readers
to eBooks reading. The results were similar to the results of Saleem (2011) which reflect
the worldwide interest and preference toward printed books. In the other hand, the answer
of the second question in the first section can seem a little bit contradictory to the answer
of the first question, but in the light of the rest of the question, the researcher analyzes
those results. The researcher believes that most of the reader chose that they prefer
printed books over eBooks because: 1- You can live with the book, literally. The one
cannot have memories with online copy because he can touch it or even leave any kind of
notes or messages whether to himself or to the next reader. 2- Buying printed books gives
you the chance to go to the bookshop or the library where you can meet another books
you were not intended to buy or to encounter new reader friend or even your future
husband/wife. In eBooks shops, you cannot see the other books in the shelves. Just the
books you know its name to search do it and purchase it. 3- Printed books can be gifted
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while eBooks cannot. Sure, if you have some dear friend or some you care about and you
wanted to show him how much you care for him, you will exert some effort by going to
the library and buy a book he love then write a dedication in it by your handwriting and
after that you can wrap it in gifts paper and then give to him/her. While eBooks cannot go
through this process because it is a digital copy. A digital copy that require no effort to
buy and cannot be wrapped and handed in hand. 4- According to many studies, the
information we read in printed books stay much longer time in our brains more than
information we read in eBooks because it can use the mind palace1 to relate the
information to some real objects or its place in the book that make it easier for the brain
to recall it later. 5- You can store book at your home and make a home-library to leave
influence in your children. 6- There is a lot of distraction in reading online. The moment
you hold your smart phone, you will find a lot of missed calls maybe, notifications from
other apps and maybe some SMS from your friends. But, the moment you hold a book,
new ritual begin. The moment you hold printed book to read it, you will be, entirely, in
new world where no one can get you out of it.
In the second question, most of the appliers said that they read more eBooks more
than printed books. The researcher believes that the participants said that because of
many reasons in the light of the fourth question in the second section: 1- eBooks are
much cheaper than printed books. Of course, the production of eBook do not cost
anything or anyone but the author because there is no need for real papers or ink or
1 It is a method of memory enhancement, which uses visualization to organize and recall information. A lot of memory contest champions claim to use this technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more to do with their technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning
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distributing or any hardcopy work. So, the price of the printed books cost more than a
normal reader can handle where he has other essential obligation to pay for. In a nutshell,
even the readers do prefer printed books; they read eBooks more for economic reasons.
2- The scarcity factor. Where the study has been conducted, most of the important books
are not available printed because of the siege or the banned books from entering the
country by the authority. If you did not find the books of your favorite writher as
hardcopies near the place you live, of course you will try other ways to get to them. In
this case, eBooks are one of the main other ways to get to all the books of the world. The
researcher sees that if all books are available in the libraries; then this will mitigate the
immigration toward eBooks. From the answers of the first section questions, we can say
that the hypothesis has been confirmed.
The second section
It is not shocking to see this result in a society where no health awareness. Just 7%
of reader are concerned about their health and how their reading behaviors can affect
their mental and physical situation. The question above was about both answers
(printed/electronic) books. The researcher thinks that if the reader knew the harms and
the side effects of reading they would be reading printed books more than eBooks in
better given circumstances.
In the second question in the second section, the results are semi-close. Maybe
because it divides people into two types according to their abilities. The first type is
people who have enough patience to read a big book which may reach to hundreds pages.
Also, this kind of people have passion, and they use it as a motivation to read more and
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more without taking care about how big the book is. The second type is people who
prefer to read small books not because they do not have enough patience or passion, but
maybe because they found small books suitable to their time and schedule. Regarding to
the type of books, more than half of the reader sees that the size of the book whether it is
big or small affect their type of reading. Normal people tend to pick books, which have
brief information since we are in the age of technological development where the search
speed, so they choose theirs topics according to specific subjects. For example, when they
want to read about politics, they choose big books because politics is so wild topic and
you cannot find briefed information about it, and it has many branches, so one small book
will not be enough to collect enough information or at least cover the whole subject. The
researcher also thinks that when the one is going to read any book, he will look its size.
For example, if he wanted to read a short story or an article or even a novella, it will not
take any effort or time form him, so, he will not mine read it electronic; however, if the
books is 1000 pages, then he will postpone the reading until he get the hardcopy.
Regarding to the fourth question, the majority of the readers chooses that the type
of the book affect the type of reading. The researcher thinks that students, whether BA,
MA or PhD, are using softcopies of their studying materials where they are not going to
need later. However, the same readers will read the non-academic books as printed books
because they will store for any other use in the future.
The last question in this section, as mentioned above, is coming like the resolution
for all the mystery in the given answers by the students. It was put as a tricky question to
show the real preference of the reader in time everything is available and free. The results
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come exactly as the researcher expect them to be. This confirms the hypothesis that
printed books are better than eBooks in most of the readers’ point of view.
Suggestions and recommendations
1- The researcher suggests that academic institutions such as universities should raise
the awareness, specially, about the side effects of eBooks reading.
2- To mitigate people’s displacement from the camp to printed books to eBooks, then
the country need to stop banning any book no matter how it contradicts with the
policy of its authority because it is under the umbrella of freedom of expression.
3- The Country should support printed books to make it in hand of all classes. Egypt
did that and made a revolution in printed books reading there.
4- Ministry of education or any other concerned institution should establish new
contests and completion to read and summarize some old and essential books that
have no softcopies to pay attention toward these books.
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References
Alian, R. (2010). Electronic and Digital libraries, P. 157. Amman: Dar Safa.
Angier, M. (2014). Top Ten Reasons Why eBooks are Better than Printed Books
retrieved October 27, 2015 from http://successnet.org/cms/sales-and-marketing
