When you think of “dealing with a book” the first thought comes to handling the physical book itself. However now a days, to read any book, you rarely need to actually have it in your vicinity. For convenience’s sake, I like being able to find books and sources online, to save on time when writing essays. But if I were to handle an important or rare book, it would be a must to physically hold it. Like an autograph, its worth feels much more to get it in person than to be given a photograph of it. The impact delivered in each case are on completely different levels.
In a less grand sense, having a digital book differs greatly from a physical one. For one, the weight. The weight of a book lets me know that I have it, and that it has information to give. Turning the pages and feeling the weight shift as I flip through a book lets me feel like I make progress. Neither of those sensations can be felt digitally. The weight remains constant. I can check how many pages I have left, but it still feels as if I haven’t moved.
In regards to a “hands-on” experience, I would have to say only handling the physical book would count, in the same way that cooking works: just because you see the picture and read the recipe doesn’t mean you know how to cook. Just because you saw photos of the pages and read them doesn’t mean you handled the book. Granted the situations differ by quite a bit, the point should still get across.
I agree with what was written and I for one prefer reading from an actual physical book instead of one from online. I enjoy feeling the properties that the author of this article describes. Although it’s cliched it adds to the experience.
This is something that thousands of people have probably noticed but often take for granted. The size of the page stack does give a a good indication of how much one has left to go when reading a book. It is just another aspect of the reading process that is lost in the transition to eBooks. Whether or not these feature are missed depends on preference. I too favor physical books, but it can be understood that some people would prefer being able to save the large amount of space that a small library of books can take up in a home.