Oh wait, I need to change that...

The thing that I like and found most interesting about digital books is that they can be changed more easily.  Instead of making a new edition because you found a typo and then attempting to sneak around and burn all the evidence [as I probably would… in my head] you can go in and change it fairly easily.  What is written digitally is less permanent.  If you find something mortifying, you can also take it down completely without too much trouble.  Sure, you may still fret that people  have seen it and now think you’re crazy, but it at least no one else will see it, right?  Well, unless it’s been copied around the internet.

The downside is the lack of ownership.  You no longer own this awesome book collection that can be displayed and passed down.  Though, the inability to be passed down seems like a minor thing when you think of how many people really would delete all of the books from someone’s computer or tablet.  It’s just like music.  Still, there is the sense of loss when you don’t own a physical copy of a book.  I only have a couple of ebooks and I still want to buy the physical copies.

I get my news online

Honestly, my best idea of when print is visible for just a moment and superseded by the internet is in newspapers.  Newspapers may be written to be glimpsed in stores, but most people just move past them to the internet.  Hardly anyone pays attention to the printed newspaper anymore as it is easier and cheaper to simply look everything up online.  The same news is there and even more that may reflect the reader’s interests better than what was printed in their home city or state that day.

One could also say that this happens in one’s thoughts.  They may write something and say to themselves “This would be a great book!  But it’s much easier to just post to the internet… and I’m not really looking to make money.”  In this case, print is forgotten for a chance to tell their story to the world.  Even with print on demand, I feel like people are more likely to post to a blog first.