Week 11 - The Aesthetics of Digital literature

Will books be overtaken by computers?

Books vs. computers has been a topic of much debate. The introduction of the computer was said to eventually take over the book as a computer would also have the information that could be found in a book however, this has been far from the case. Books have been around since western Roman Empire in the 6th century. Books have been an integral source of research and information. The format of a book makes it very easy to use as there are pages numbers which means you can keep track of where you are in the book.

However, since computers have also been a source of information, in recent times especially since the introduction of the Internet, it has brought the idea that they will overtake books. An example were books can be found and read on the Internet is ‘Google books’. This saves a lot of time as the book is available to read on the Internet which is very easy to find instead of searching for the publication in a library.

Nevertheless, books have survived the development in technology and are still being used even with the computer and Internet. One of the main reasons being the aesthetics of the book. With a book you can follow your progress with page numbers which you can't do when reading off a computer. Also the simplicity of turning a page over to the next one which is something you also can't do when reading off a computer. Personally, I believe books will continue to remain integral for many years to come as information and research found from them is said to be more reliable and trustworthy.