"It's a BOOK." Just a book.

I was on a news webpage this morning, getting my morning news reading done when I noticed an advertising banner for a children's book called "It's A Book" by Lane Smith. Simple enough title. The ad asked questions like "Can it text? Can it tweet? Can it blog?" I got curious and  clicked over to the website for the children's book and it directed me to a youtube video. In it, a donkey and I think it's a gorilla or monkey are sitting down together. The donkey is internet and technology savvy with his laptop on his lap. The monkey is an old fashioned book reader with a plain old fashioned book. Donkey starts asking question about monkey's book.... see the video below

At the end, the monkey and a little bird tell Mr. Tech-y, "It's a book jackass!" in plain enough English.

Okay, I'm sorry, but this alarmed me. Are future generations not going to know what a simple bound book is? How to turn the page? Are my future children not going to know what to do if I were to hand them a book? I hope it never comes to this, but it makes sense. How many people in my generation would know what to do with a record player if given to them? Will books become this way? Are we so technologically dependant to simply ignore a simpler way? We tweet, we text, we type, e-mail, blog, etc. How often do we pick up a book? A physical, turn the page book?

  With bookstore giant, Borders filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month and closing over 200 stores, it makes you wonder. The new electronic reader devices like the Nook and Kindle are great, don't get me wrong, but will the printed page become a thing of the past? Will libraries become a thing of the past? 

If you're like me, I love bookstores. I frequent Barnes and Noble and Borders regularly. There's just something special about cracking the spine on a new book. 

 But these new E-Readers intice me. They hold thousands of titles, cost less to own. I don't think wouldn't deter one from purchasing books. I read a statistc that said  "when people buy an e-reader like the Kindle or the Nooks, only 15% of them will actually stop purchasing printed books." Yes, it's more cost effective. No ink, or paper to use, lower printing costs, etc. More cost effective. Newsweek even ran a story comparing e-downloads to bound books. There isn't a defined "better option," but it's interesting to think about. 

I could see E-Readers being great for college textbooks. I'm a college student and lament at the very thought of the price of textbooks. Expensive beyond belief! I think the market could be huge to offer e-"text"books or PDF formats. There are some that do, but some people just prefer the physicality of an actual text. I mean, I don't think I could handle reading an electronic version of the Bible. How we use these E-Readers and E-books will affect our media, our schools, our homes, technology, even social aspects. 

I don't think that traditional books will ever disappear, but it's interesting to see how our use of technology affects everything. I mean, after all, I'm blogging.. on a computer.. typing word onto a screen.. Isn't that funny?