I love computers. I am on a computer constantly...heck I might be an internet addict. But I gotta tell ya. A friend of mine. Was talking about how her class is web supported. And all the Textbooks and everything are online. And the classroom discussion is on a discussion board. And isn't that great. And that some school districts are going totally paperless...and that there are no textbooks, but each child has a laptop. And how great that was. And I said I have done papers on computers since I was in school, and I assume that I would have no trouble sending in a paper as an email attachment, or reasearching something like magazine articles online. But I told her if I was gonna read a 300 page text I would want to have a hard copy...Cause I hate reading big loads of stuff on a computer. Her answer was that she didn't actually have to read the whole text cause there is a search function, and speaking as a straight A student, she never read a whole text. I said what about a literature class, and she said literature classes mostly had anthologized short stories and poetry and seldom asked you to read anything novel length. And that even in Lit classes she does 90+ percent of her reading online. I asked her about her kids, and what if when given a book they didn't know how to turn the pages, and were looking for the cursor down. And she said what is wrong with that, it would save trees. Smart lady and I know she reads actual paper books for fun, but she is pretty adamant that all of this is progress. How about it folks, am I behind the times, or would most of you like to at least have the option of a printed book to read. Just curious.
I'd prefer a book, especially in college. That way I can highlite and write notes in the book. I think its annoying printing out lots of reading from a website or e-mail attachment. When I have to I would usually just go to the library at school, but we got an e-mail right before the end of the year this year, saying they're going to start charging money to print stuff off.
