Are Books Becoming Obsolete?

when my computer illiterate mother has a e-reader it good bye to book stores.
wait for a really good book store to open on line and then the brick and mortar shops, I am thinking a second life virtual book store, not these ones where you see a few pages of promoted books and you have to search to find other books.

this happening guy has a new use for books... http://imgur.com/a/MC1g0

I feel like I'm right in between generations on this (I'm a Carter baby) - my favorite smell is 'old book' and every time I walk into a bookstore or library, I take on this dreamy, slightly sleepwalking quality of just being completely surrounded by what I love best in the world.

However. I live in an apartment with limited bookshelf space, travel frequently with limited suitcase space, and have repetitive stress injuries that make it painful to hold up a book and turn its pages. So I have gone digital with a vengeance. I dream sometimes of having a library that requires one of those rolling ladders, but will most likely have to settle for an iPad with ever-greater storage space.

I suspect the joy of holding (and smelling!) a book is one of those pleasures that won't come naturally to future generations. My three-year-old niece already tries to swipe the pages of books we read to her. But surely there will be some place for them, as there is for most art forms eclipsed by technology.

I think books will never become obsolete.
It will live as long as humans exist.
There's no way you fully absorb the essence of material without a book. Reading and re-reading paragraphs or lines, checking back the information is impossible on an electronic device.

I've read a few things on this topic. The basic ideas from these articles lead me to believe that no, the printed book will never become obsolete. A few things to speculate on:

1.) Books are collectables. It's possible to collect eBooks, but it's not as fun.

2.) Some people still prefer the weight of a book in-hand opposed to holding a thin eReader

3.) Boos are keepsakes passed down to younger generations. There is no history to an electronic file opposed to a bound book.

There are numerous others, but this is the gist of it.

I think in maybe like 10 or 15 years there will be a huge decline in them with the newer generations coming in, and they seem more accepting of technology. I personally don't have a preference. I like reading on a tablet because it saves paper, but if I'm spending $15.99 on a book I might as well just buy the hardcopy instead of the ebook. I find the ebook and hardcopy is almost always the same price (unless your downloading it illegally)

Never thought I'd go e-reader until I got one on a 3 week trip and man was it amazing. I read quick, and on an 8 hour flight plus several hours of airport hang-about, I'm done with whatever book I bring before I ever finish getting where I'm going. And there's only so many books I can bring; even 3 books takes up a surprisingly large amount of space. Got a Kindle though, and it was so small and light; plus, if I wanted a book it was like 3-8 bucks and boom, in my lap. If it's 11pm and I want to start something new, I've got it (as long as there's wifi). I still get physical books every once in a while, but only from second-hand stores.

I've got a friend who only uses his kindle for trips - the rest of the time he reads books from the library. He'll get 3 at a time, read them, and go back. Saves him money. I never have the time to do that though, so the instant appeal of e-readers is pretty great for me, even though I miss the smell of books and the impressive nature of looking at a physical collection. It's like:

"Look at that bookshelf. Damn, that's like 200 books. How cool; I could spend a month in here." vs "What? Oh, you want me to see your e-books? You mean that little tablet thing? Yeah, oh wow, 200 books on it. That must have been a lot of money."

One of the interesting snippets of info I came away from BEA with was that independent bookstores are once again on the rise -- that while ebooks are certainly ubiquitous, people remain loyal to print, particularly when they have a local option from which to purchase.

This makes sense to me.

There are tons of things I read on ebook but it isn't like I've stopped buying print books. It's a different experience and I think it's kind of reductionist how we've had this "are ebooks going to kill print" conversation since ebooks were invented. The publishing landscape will continue to change but I don't think print is dead by any means.

I'm an old guy - it took me forever to get a kindle. It died a dignified electronic death and now, I have a tablet and a large smart phone. I read on them everywhere I go. I used to pack over a thousand books when we moved - now I pack two copies of everything I've published.

Yesterday out at our writers group meeting, one person commented she writes long hand by pen. One other said he used to. Everyone else couldn't imagine creating without the speed of a keyboard. The same will most likely eventually happen with paper books. A few will enjoy them, but most will wonder why? Why go through the trouble of breaking the spine and feeling bad, why deal with mold in old used books, why a lot of other problems with paper books.

I for one, am delighted with having thousands of books in my pocket!

I just ordered the newest kindle paper-white the other day, and I'm excited to get my first e-reader. I think of the dozens and dozens of books I've lost over the years during moves, and this seems like an elegant solution.

I don't think they will ever just disappear completely. I hope not anyways because I would be sad. I do read electronic books myself but I take my children to the library every week my son is six and my daughter is three. I get great joy out of searching for books that they will enjoy and I love to see them sitting down with a stack of books just to look through. My daughter looks at books by herself at least once a day and tells the stories from memory.

My hands are not as nimble as they once were. Hence, I prefer reading on a Samsung tablet with a Kindle app. Of course, some books have not been formatted for electronic reading and some that have been are of poor quality. If there is a book that I really want to read that's not in Kindle, I get it used from Amazon. My occupational therapist thinks turning pages is good therapy.

I used to enjoy drinking coffee at Borders, but alas it is no more. B/N has also closed some stores in the area. Perhaps the biggest loss in bookstore closing is the loss of cultural/social hubs.

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BoF said:

I used to enjoy drinking coffee at Borders, but alas it is no more. B/N has also closed some stores in the area. Perhaps the biggest loss in bookstore closing is the loss of cultural/social hubs.

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I am sad about the loss of many local bookstores. I don't want to give up my kindle, but I do miss the feel of being surround all those new, unread books.

I'm more worried about how the younger generations reads less. Period. It seems like reading fun books is becoming a thing of the past and being replaced by social media, bias news sites, videogames, and TV. That's what I find sad. Books spark creativity and imagination, but kids are moving away from them.

I was thinking what if some major disaster were to happen and electricity were to be shut off permanently or if technology advances so quickly that old formats become obsolete. Many things not in print or not being put on new formats might just vanish. I noticed this when my old apple computer died and when I bought the new, "supposedly" better apple computer, I was unable to open old obsolete iMovie files and the new computer didn't come with iDVD. Apparently they are trying to push their crappy cloud storage. I suppose I thought that DVDs were the way to go, but apparently even DVDs are becoming a thing of the past. I am starting to realize that all those photographs, and movies that are on DVDs might not be playable in the future and things like physical books and paper photographs and actual movie film might not be such a bad idea to have around.

I don't think they will ever become obsolete but I do think less people are reading books now. Too many young people spend time all of their i pods and their various game consoles that reading is becoming rare. And it's a shame. I'm sure it will have repercussions for writers.

Ally Atherton said:

I don't think they will ever become obsolete but I do think less people are reading books now. Too many young people spend time all of their i pods and their various game consoles that reading is becoming rare. And it's a shame. I'm sure it will have repercussions for writers.

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Exactly. And it's not just young folks, although it is very apparent. I see young folks curled up with mobile devices ONLY - not with books. Yet even those of us longer in the tooth are dropping book-reading from our leisure activities like 3-foot putts. Another huge clue as to the appalling drop in book-reading across the board? Books hardly ever come up in casual conversation. And I'm old enough to remember when they did, and often.

For me? This trend - and I think it has to be irreversible - is the #1 stopper for me to continue authoring novels. So much work is involved in writing an engrossing novel. Expense, too.

I'm switching to film writing, for films to be produced by ME. Writing spec screenplays for Hollywood or even the indie producers is fast becoming a colossal waste of time and talent. Feature-length films have already seen their better days, but let's hope that leisure activity will hang on for awhile.

Write_At_1st_Light said:

Exactly. And it's not just young folks, although it is very apparent. I see young folks curled up with mobile devices ONLY - not with books. Yet even those of us longer in the tooth are dropping book-reading from our leisure activities like 3-foot putts. Another huge clue as to the appalling drop in book-reading across the board? Books hardly ever come up in casual conversation. And I'm old enough to remember when they did, and often.

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I hear this sort of thing all the time, but on the other hand, has there ever been a period in history that was as good to books as ours is? Even as people talk about how books are dying, I seem to encounter another "big thing" every few months, whether it's John Green, Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Gray... could any other period in history have supported the amount of money we spend in the publishing industry today? Big name authors seem to be selling plenty of books, as far as I can tell. And it's never been so easy for smaller names to break into the field, either. Self-publishing is difficult, but success is perfectly possible.

The research I've seen indicates that book-reading is actually going up among younger people. People will seek out stories, and as long as books are able to give them a storytelling experience they can't get elsewhere, they'll read books. I do think, however, that the methods by which books are distributed and the kind of books people read will change.

Write_At_1st_Light said:

I see young folks curled up with mobile devices ONLY - not with books.

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I don't mean to be pedantic, but mobile devices often hold books.

The paperback market might be diminishing, but the ebook market is expanding.

I love reading books that is why I am making effort to introduce book reading to my children. They have their gadgets but at night reading a story before sleeping time is a MUST.

While I now prefer to read from e-readers, one thing that really does bother me are back catalogues. £0.01 for a paperback (new) and £5.99 for the ebook.


It seems a shame as I would happy pay £1.00 or £2.00 for the e-version.

We will always have books but I cant say the same as newspapers.

I can see books becoming a niche thing split in to two or so categories, with print on demand on one side and small specialist publishers feeding a collector market on the other.

Books for mass consumption will probably become exclusively electronic.

Like with music, I like having instant access to any song ever recorded where ever I am, but I love listening to vinyl. A paperback in fifty years could well be a luxury item.

WriterDude said:

Books for mass consumption will probably become exclusively electronic.

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I beg to disagree. Not until we run out/are threatened to run out of trees.

Books, aside from being awesome things to read, are each an objet d'art in themselves. They are appreciated for beauty as well as content.

Music is not. Some people display vinyl, and here is where I see some of what you say for the collector market in books, but generally the music is the thing itself. I used to love reading liner notes, but once I digitized my CD collection, those boxes of jewel cases and liner notes haven't been touched. Recorded music is maybe 100-125 years old. Books are what, 4,000 years old?

I have a Kindle and for a period of a few years I purged all my books and only bought Kindle books in the name of cleanliness and minimalism. But then I realized something was missing. As the only bookshelves in my house were in my children's rooms. What kind of example was that? Since we now have bookshelves in several rooms in our house, I have begun to buy books on paper again.

And I am not the only one. eBook growth has already started to slow.

Just my $0.02.

Yes. There will always be books, but I don't see a future in mass production. Some people buy a book, some just want the content. I prefer a paper book but time marches on. Ebooks existed before my kids were born. They are part of their normal. Paper has its place for them, but a printed book isn't the default and I foresee the day when a paper copy will exist when it's produced for a specific customer, and when you have to go out of your way to obtain one.