Books are dying, kept alive by tablets, e-book readers

Books are, in my opinion, one of the best innovations known to man. While many earlier forms of storing information and literature have existed long before people wrote shit on paper then binded them together, books have remained living until today. And by living, I mean it's currently holding on for dear life.

Electronic book technology has allowed people to read works of literature on their shiny tablets, Kindles, iPhones, etc. My Desire HD carries a large collection of ebooks of which I spend an hour or two everyday to read. While I do have a large collection of ebooks, I also have an equally large collection of physical books. You know, those that are written on "paper" and binded together.

Reading on paper is way better than reading on some LCD screen. I've never enjoyed looking at electronic screens anyway. No matter how many innovations in display technology are being made every day, like high resolution LCDs, LED-backlit screens and the like, I just really don't get the hang of reading text on a bright screen. I've even had a hard time writing this post because it appears that my laptop's screen is fucking me with its brightness. And that's why when I read text, I try to invest a lot in anti-aliasing and high resolution displays. Also, something that's not too bright on my eyes.

This kind of ranting is strange to hear from someone who spends his time in front of screens of all sizes, be it dark UNIX terminals on my laptop or my phone. But seriously, nothing beats the sensation of reading a physical book in the presence soft light. There's even the aroma of aged paper that pulls you in to read further. Additionally, while reading physical books, there's the strange effect where you won't try to skim the story or skip parts the first time you read it. In reading text in screens, your TL;DR instincts start to kick in. With physical literature, the concept of TL;DR simply could not exist (unless you're reading a shitty book).

I know this ranting makes me sound like I'm sixty years old, but honestly I'm not even of legal age yet. But it really sucks that lots of people (old folks included) begin to favor ebooks over the original, physical ones we've been enjoying for more than a thousand and a half years. But then again, who reads ebooks? The longest piece of literature the majority of people read today is probably a Facebook status message. And statistically, 99.99999% of Facebook statuses don't even count as literature. "Random shit jumbled into decipherable words" would be a more appropriate term for it.

TL;DR: E-books suck.