For years until new inventions came out to improve our lives, we have being living with many inconvenience. In fact, there are too much inventions that we can name, but one of the best invention that improves our everyday lives is technology. Technology has made everything easier for us, including things like reading, which brings up the question, “ Are paper books better than ebooks?”. We can easily say that paper books are better because they don’t emit blue lights and they don’t have any other distractions to interrupt the reading, but we can also say that ebooks are better for the environment than paper books.
One good reason to choose paper books over ebooks is because of the blue lights that tablets, phones, and computers emit while you are reading them (“What is the best device for reading in terms of CO2?” pg.1-2). In addition, blue light is a type of light in sunlight that help boost our attention, reaction, and our mood during the day, but throws off our circadian rhythm if being emitted during the night (“Blue light has a dark side”).
These lights are recognized as daytime in our bodies, and when these lights are emitted during times when the circadian rhythm is expecting rest, it can throw off that rhythm. In the long run, this can cause cancers, heart disease, and many other types of sickness which, in the end, could possibly kill you after an extended period of time (“Blue light has a dark side”). These kind of lights are used in tablets to make them bright, but could also cause a problem if you are reading on your device for too long, it could cause bad eyesight and illnesses if read at night as well. Blues(extra s) lights are one of the most disturbing things about technology, especially when it could cause illnesses, but it is not the only thing that is disturbing about technology.
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Another reason why it’s better to choose paper books is because there is no distraction. For example, if you were to read on devices like iPads and phones, you could easily get distracted by a notification from apps, ads, or even other apps on your devices like Facebook, Instagram, etc. (Bosman and Richtel). On the other hand, paper books don’t have such distraction. In addition, eliminating distractions help the reader focus more on the reading itself. We have seen many advantages of paper books, and disadvantages of ebooks, but there are also some advantages that ebook have.
Let’s consider a device like a Kindle. There are actually no blue lights in Kindles and no other distractions because it is a device for reading only. It is also more environmentally friendly because it doesn’t use paper. However, even if a Kindle seems like the better choice for the environment along with other devices, their carbon footprints, the amount of carbon dioxide they produce, does have an impact on our environment.
For example: the amount of carbon dioxide produce for each book is around 2.7 kg, so each time you were to buy a book it would add 2.7kg to your carbon footprint, while production for each kindle produces 168 kg, an iPad produces 130 kg, the production of desktops produces 380 kg, and average laptops produces 560 kg (“What is the best device for reading in terms of CO2?” pg.1-2)! We can see from these facts,(no comma) that Kindles produces less carbon dioxide than an iPad, a desktop, and a laptop.
On the other hand, Kindles can only be used for reading,(no comma) and every time you download books,(no comma) it needs energy to download, in other words; every time you download a book, it increases your carbon footprint, which is around 4.1 kg of carbon dioxide per book, which is around 1.5 times higher than an actual paper copied book (“What is the best device for reading in terms of CO2?” pg.1-2). As you can see, even when devices like Kindle seem like the best option to be more environmentally friendly, after tracing down the carbon footprint for both a device and a paper book, it doesn’t seem as environmentally friendly as a paper book now, does it?
As you can see, the amount of carbon footprint of(no of) a reading device brings us to the conclusion that if we were to be more friendly to our planet, we should choose paper books. In addition, because they don’t emit blue light, they don’t have distraction from other sources, and the small carbon footprint compared to other devices you might use for reading, paper books are the best option to choose. However, as time pass by, there could be more advanced technology or inventions that could be both environmental friendly and beneficial to reading, but until that more advanced invention brings us more benefits and conveniences, we should be using paper books.
