Pros and Cons of eReading

After a long internal battle, I finally caved last year and bought an Amazon Fire HD 6. To be honest with you, it was kind of an impulse buy because they were really on sale during Prime day last February. I had been toying with the idea for awhile because I really felt like I needed to be reading more for fun because school had been wearing me out, and I knew I was going to be doing some traveling in March and August. So I pulled the trigger, and I want to share with you some of the highs and lows of this investment.

Pros:

Convenience:

This is one of the biggest pros for me. This little nugget is so convenient. It fits in my purse, in my backpack, in coat pockets, basically wherever. Compared to the rate at which phones are growing, it's really not that big. Being a woman, it won't fit in my jeans pocket (we get totally ripped off in that department if you ask me, but that's a complaint for another day), but I can bring it with me basically anywhere and it's so convenient. Plus it only weighs like 10 ounces, which is pretty small (less than a pound), so it's really nice if you're traveling so you don't have to pack a bunch of books that weigh down your suitcase.

My Fire fits perfectly in my purse

Price of books:

eBooks can be cheaper to purchase than real books, but that's not always true. While you aren't paying for the cost of printing, publishers do try to keep prices pretty comparable to physical books because it's important that the authors earn the money that they deserve. However, new releases are generally less expensive to purchase in eBook form than they are in physical form. An example of this is Cursed Child, which you can see below. Right now on Amazon if you were to buy the eBook it would be less expensive than purchasing the hardback book (which is the only one offered at the moment).

Screen Grab from Amazon

They are also less expensive when buying classics. Because of copyright laws, many books become public domain 70 years after their author has died. For example, if you wanted the complete works of William Shakespeare, you could find it online legally and for free and download it to your device. However, if you want a printed version, you would likely have to buy each work separately or find a relatively expensive full collection. While the free version likely won't have annotations or other notes, you're still getting all of the content. So in this case you win some and lose some.

Immediacy:

This is one of the greatest things about eBooks for me. If I find something I want, I don't have to wait more than a few minutes to get it. You can either buy the digital copy and download it, or rent it from a library service such as Bridges. I think this might be the aspect that really sold it for me. I could read whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I didn't have to wait for the library or a bookstore to be open or have to go out somewhere to get a book, it was all at my fingertips.

Mental Health:

According to The Reading Agency, "The relationship between reading for pleasure and wellbeing is particularly interesting, with evidence showing a correlation between reading for pleasure regularly and lower levels of stress and depression. Reading also seems to reduce the risk of dementia, with frequent readers having lower incidence of dementia in later life." For me, having an eReader made it much easier for me to be able to read for pleasure during the school year. Having such a small device on which to read encouraged me to keep my kindle with me more, so if I have a few spare minutes between classes, I can just pick it up and read a chapter or two. I don't have to worry about it taking up too much space in my backpack, and it saves exactly what page you're on so you don't even have to worry about bringing a bookmark. 

My home library also uses Bridges, which I mentioned above, so I was able to borrow books from the library without having to go home and worry about being able to return the books on time. Digital loans just disappear when your time is up. You don't have to worry about late fees or ruining the book somehow (one of my worst nightmares), and so long as there isn't a waiting list, you can renew them just like you would at a regular library. 

Introversion:

Ok this one might just be me because I can be such an introvert, but you don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to. You don't have to leave the comfort of your favorite reading spot to go get books. If you're out in public and you're reading, no one is trying to read the cover to see what you're reading and strike up a conversation. If you don't want to, you don't have to talk to anybody, which can be super nice.

Photo via The Paperback Stash

Light:

This one might also just be me, but it can be really great that your device is lit for you. If you've been curled up all day reading, and it starts to get dark, you don't have to get up and turn the light on or off. This is especially great when I'm reading before bed because then I don't have to get out of my warm cozy bed to turn the light off before I go to sleep (or have to sleep with the light on because I'm too lazy to get up). They even have a night time mode on my Fire called blue shade so that the light dims when you're reading at night so it doesn't keep you awake or disrupt your sleep.

Taking notes:

I'm the kind of person who loves to take notes when I'm reading. I think it's just really interesting to see the way you think at different times in your life so when you go back and read something again, you're reminded of how you've grown and how your perspective has changed since the last time you read this, or what quotes have stuck out to you and what you thought of them at different times. However, this is in direct contrast with my inability to write in books (there's a special place in hell for people who dog ear pages). I've always just viewed them as sacred and I can't get myself to write in them. If I do, it has to be in pencil and very lightly so that I can erase it if I need to. With eBooks, you don't have to worry about that. Because it's all digital, you can highlight, comment, bookmark, basically whatever you want, and there's no residual damage if you erase it or change your mind later.

Photo via Inkygirl.com

Cons:

Light:

Ok, I know I just listed this as a pro, but there are also some bummer things about it. Depending on what device you're reading from, the light from the device can start to be bothersome. Because my Fire is technically a tablet that is easily compatible with Kindle, the light can sometimes be kind of harsh. It does occasionally make my eyes tired, but that's primarily just if I've been reading for a really, really long time (it happens). It's just like if you've spent all day on the computer, and your eyes just get tired from looking at the screen all day. However, they do make devices such as the Kindle Paperwhite that minimize this discomfort. I ended up buying the Fire because I liked some of the other things it did (access to Goodreads, ability to watch ABC Go and Netflix, amongst other things), and it was less expensive. Unfortunately, it does sometimes have a glare that makes it a little harder to read, but I got no glare screen protector that helps with this a lot, so I'm able to read outside if I want to. Again, the Paperwhite eliminates this problem without having to get a screen protector.

There's just something about a physical book:

This was a big one for me when I was trying to decide if I even wanted an eReader. There are few things more satisfying to me than the smell and feel of reading a physical book, and that's still true even though I do a lot of my reading on my Fire. It's not quite as soul satisfying because you don't have the physical aspect of turning pages and feeling the paper, but it's also not like I exclusively read eBooks now. Trust me, I still spend way too much money on physical books.

Weekend book haul from @PlotTwistBooks! @indiebound @jk_rowling @MargaretAtwood #JimKay #JohnCoreyWhaley pic.twitter.com/pScd7CV0xi

— Book 'em Blog (@bookemblog) October 9, 2016

Price:

eReaders can be kind of expensive, there's no getting around that. I paid about $110 for my 16 GB Kindle Fire HD 6 plus a case and a no glare screen protector. That's obviously not cheap, but for the amount I use it, it has definitely been worth it to me. I did come to discover that I probably didn't really need the 16 GB. I think I would have had plenty of space with just 8 GB, but now I have plenty of room for my library to grow, and I can add other apps because it is a tablet and not just an eReader.

Charging:

This one can be a pretty big bummer. There have been a few times where I found myself on campus having packed my Fire thinking I'll just read in the hour between classes only to discover that it was dead upon arrival. It can be a real bummer, but it uses a basic mini HDMI charger, so odds are you could find a friend who has one with them or borrow one from the library. How often you have to charge your device also really depends on how you use it. I almost exclusively use mine for reading even though it can do a bunch of other stuff, so I leave the WiFi turned off basically all the time unless I'm downloading a book and depending how much I'm reading and where I'm reading it'll probably last me a good week. However, when I was on vacation last March and doing a lot of reading outside, I had to charge it basically every night because having the brightness up so high all day made the battery die faster. It really just depends.

So what do you recommend?

I have never regretted buying my Fire, and I don't think you probably will either. If you don't want to pull the trigger quite yet, download the Kindle app on your phone, iPod, or iPad. See if you even like reading books digitally. It might be that it's just not you're thing and you want to stick with actual books. More power to you! You may find that reading on a device you already have works great for you, so there's no need to buy a new device for it. I chose to buy my Fire because I didn't have any other tablet like device and I felt my phone was too small to read on, so it works great for me. It does everything I want it to and I use it almost every day. Do some research about the different devices and decide what's best for you. What's most important is that you keep reading!