Digital readers are not going to replace textbooks. It would be great to have modern technology save the day for students, but it will never happen.
One reason for this is it would place everything a student needed for their class in one place. Any student who has ever had a hard drive crash right before they had to turn in a paper will tell you that having a large amount of information crucial to a certain class stored only in one place is a bad idea.
What textbooks do is spread information that must otherwise be purchased into several locations capable of taking the beatings associated with college life.
Another reason students shouldn’t look forward to using readers anytime soon is the fact that they remove the process of book lending. There are a lot of students who purchase previously used books secondhand; many students also buy one copy of a book to share with others so as to save money.
If you think that it would be possible to share books through readers, try copying someone’s entire iTunes playlist and listening to it on an unauthorized computer. And just think, that’s how far Apple goes to protect songs that cost less than a dollar.
But the main reason that digital readers should never replace textbooks is because it’s not what students want.
Readers would be great to have and would most definitely make everyone look more like a member of the Jetson family, but they just aren’t practical devices for college students. Students need something that can be used as an umbrella, a coaster or a doorstop more than a poor excuse for a laptop. And if laptops haven’t replaced textbooks by now, there is no reason to assume that a less practical device would.
So every student who gets a strange thrill out of buying textbooks can rest assured; they’re not going to be replaced any time soon.
This article is ridiculous. To say something as bold as “it will never happen” is moronic and irresponsible. Here are several reasons why your argument sucks:
1) Who says electronic textbooks have to be local? There are many electronic books that are only available over the internet, and thus there is no “crash” that could effect things. The “cloud” doesn’t crash.
2) Even if the textbook was locally stored, have you ever heard of a thing called backups? If anything, having an electronic copy of the book is more secure, not less. Can you make a backup of your physical textbook? To use your words, “a large amount of information crucial to a certain class stored only in one place is a bad idea.”
3) You’re assuming electronic textbooks must have some sort of DRM on them, and even then, you’re assuming that this aforementioned DRM disallows the sharing of the content. By the way, I can listen to all of my iTunes Library wherever I want because I don’t purchase songs with DRM. Apple doesn’t sell most songs with DRM either. You must have some really old songs. Are you sure you just don’t know what you’re doing?
4) You state: “But the main reason that digital readers should never replace textbooks is because it’s not what students want.” Where are you getting this from? Have you conducted some sort of research? I’d imagine if you did, you’d probably find that most students would like to get away from traditional textbooks.
Please don’t talk tech if you don’t know what you’re saying. Hell, don’t write anything for this publication if you can’t understand basic logical reasoning and do your research. It makes it look amateurish.