I have long identified as a lover of books.
I read them every chance I get and never turn down an opportunity to acquire more.
That being said, I don’t have thousands of books sitting on my bookshelf at home. Hundreds? Maybe. But not thousands.
One of the reasons why I don’t have countless numbers of books is because I am an avid believer in e-books.
While you don’t get that new book smell or the wrinkled pages of a well-loved novel, there are plenty of benefits to having books on a device.
One of the most appealing features of an e-book is that it doesn’t take up any space. This allows your reading to be portable and fit into any area you might have, no matter how small.
In the world of tiny homes and small apartments, it isn’t always realistic to carry around literal tons of books.
In addition to saving space, they often save readers money. A new physical copy of say, “Billie Eilish” by Billie Eilish is $26 at Barnes & Noble and their e-book version is only $17.
On top of saving you money on the initial price, e-books will never break down or get lost. This means that their shelf life is eternal and there won’t be any replacement or repair fees.
Last but definitely not least is the fact that e-books have a much higher rate of increasing intellect if used correctly.
Reading in general has been proven to have many benefits including increased empathy, vocabulary, problem-solving skills, brain health and more, according to Healthline. In short – It makes you smarter.
Now take an e-book. You have the exact same benefits plus all the added bonuses technology brings.
If you’re anything like me, you tend to skip words when you don’t know what they mean in a book. Very few people are going to whip out the dictionary to define the difficult word barring their path.
The lovely thing about e-books is that most of them let you define a word as soon as you come across it. Don’t know what “epistemology” is? Just click on it and the word will define itself.
Having all of the information in an easily accessible place where you can highlight, bookmark and search for words in the book also allows for easy cross referencing and retrieval of information.
So in short: an e-book can do everything a physical book can plus increase speed of retrieval, increase your understanding of words and more all in a smaller, indestructible space.