eBooks: The Way of the Future or a Step Backwards?

Raise your hand if you have purchased an eBook to help complete your online degree.

Now put it down real quick, before someone starts to wonder about your sanity. You look silly, but if you're smart, you have purchased an eBook at some point in your progress towards your B.A.

Why would you have purchased an eBook? Because they're:

• Convenient - eBooks can be purchased from anywhere by anyone. All you need is internet access, a credit card, and a device which reads eBooks (laptop/Kindle/iPhone/iPad/etc).
  

• Cost Effective - there are no printing costs involved in producing an eBook, there are no shipping costs, and (most importantly) the publisher doesn't have to worry about a pile of leftover books that might never sell. These three factors drive up the costs of traditional books and leave the market for eBooks wide open.
  

• Cool - one of the most popular, influential men in the world is a 26-year-old computer nerd. Technology is in and it's not going anywhere. The latest fad is to be totally online. eBooks are the new college cool.

Since the invention of the Amazon Kindle, almost every modern bestselling book has been digitized and sold as an eBook. This bodes well for adult literacy in the USA. Now, busy adults can always have a full library on hand. It is easier than ever to read quality literature.

However, what are eBooks doing to literature in general? Is this immediate-gratification version of reading turning books into just another consumable? Literature is taught at the most prestigious universities in Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate programs, but classic texts are available for digestion while shoppers swipe coupons and buckle seat belts. 

I appreciate that eBooks have made reading more feasible for us all, just like recordable storybooks have made it easier for children to listen to their favorite tales, but I have to wonder: what is this doing to our appreciation of literature as an art form?

Would you view the Venus de Milo while clipping your nails or paying a bill? 

There is a necessary reverence we need to feel when we're interacting with great works of art. I fear that the disposability and convenience of eBooks is encouraging us to treat literature with less respect and attention than it deserves. eBooks achieve great things for communication, but there is also a cost: the easier it is to communicate, the less we value the interaction.