Paper textbooks vs Digital textbooks?

Hi. I am a high school senior who will be attending college next year. While answering a questionnaire, I was asked whether if I want a paperback copy of my textbooks or the digital e-book copy instead. Now, digital copy sounds very attractive to me considering that it will make my backpack much lighter than it would with physical textbooks in it. But how does it really feel like when looking into your tablet or a laptop to study? Does is feel as if it is easier to concentrate when you are using paperback versions compared to e-books? Does your eyes get tired faster? Are there any price difference between the two? I would appreciate responses from personal experience. Thank you!

I’ve used both - I generally recommend paper textbooks for more quantitative coursework or coursework that entails problem sets, etc. while e-textbooks tend to work better with more reading intensive coursework (chapter/section reading in classes like History, English, Anthropology, and so on.)

The digital versions are much cheaper.

I agree with @preamble1776 ; I prefer digital for humanities classes, but want the old-fashioned books for STEM classes.

One of my kids completed a technical program that was 100% digital. She printed out many pages.

I personally prefer paper textbooks in general, since reading textbook font on my laptop makes my eyes tired. However, I can live with digital for humanities courses (though I would prefer to have a paper copy to annotate), but I absolutely need paper textbooks for STEM. It’s just much easier to underline/highlight, make notes in the margins, and do problem sets and practice problems. The wordings in STEM textbooks are also more dense imo and a digital screen makes it harder for my eyes to follow.

Digital is, of course, much cheaper than paper.

I also find it harder to concentrate when reading on my laptop- my internet browser is already open in order to read the textbook and all it takes is one click on the new tab button and I’ll start procrastinating. However, this really depends on you as a person; I already realized in high school that I was easily distracted by the internet, so in college I made sure to address my weakness. Some people are not that easily distracted by their computers, so this might not be an issue for you.

Usually you have the choice of
Buy New
Rent New
Buy Used
Rent Used (if available)
Digital

Digital are certainly handy…i know my daughter has forgotten her textbook when she visited home or on break

If you have a tablet, then maybe try one course that is digital…maybe something that is mostly reading and see if you like it?.

There’s scientific evidence that readers on tablets and electronic devices have more trouble concentrating/focusing and get fatigued a lot faster than readers of paper books.

That said, I would still vastly prefer digital. Not only are they lighter and cheaper, their portability means you can carry all of your textbooks with you at one time. Have an unexpected gap between classes? You can do your math homework in the library with your tablet or laptop. Have a couple minutes in the subway? Read a chapter on your phone. If you want paper copies you can always print them out on paper later - like if you want your problem sets on paper. You can also more easily take notes using Evernote or GoodReader or some other annotation and note-taking apps. Especially now that there are tablets with great styluses that allow you to write on them like paper.

When I was in graduate school, almost all of my material was scientific journal articles, and I read most of them electronically after my first two years (because in my first two years I had accumulated mounds of paper that ended up in piles around my tiny New York apartment, and which I eventually ended up recycling anyway). I personally found it easier to read short sections when I was out and about because I had them on a tablet, and this was before iPads were widely available. Once I got an iPad it became even easier. And I used apps on my tablet to annotate those articles and add notes, and I could quickly and easily share them to my laptop for reference later when I was writing papers.

If I were doing college all over again, but in 2016 instead of cough, I would get like a Surface 3 or Surface Pro 4 and use that for all of my notetaking and digital textbook-reading. Then I’d have a cheap desktop computer to do my big processing/paper writing in the dorms.

I don’t process reading material in digital formats very well. I get much higher quality reading comprehension from a physical paper book. I just completed a course using both digital and textbooks. The texts were much better for me in understanding the material. I like being able to flip pages and compare the material on different pages.

I’ve used digital textbooks on a small handful of occasions via both laptop and tablet. I personally prefer the hard-copy textbook. Ironically, for me, the hard-copy versions are easier to manage. Yes, they’re heavier in your bag/to carry, but it just seemed to flow better to open a textbook and thumb through it as I wanted - like going back and forth between pages and sections/chapters. Of course, these days you can do all the same things on digital text as hard-copy - highlight, insert notes, create bookmarks, etc. - but it all feels easier to do still in hard-copy form. In the digital versions, I’d often have to click through at least a couple options or settings to do each of those functions (highlight, insert notes, and add bookmarks) that it felt just a little more cumbersome than having a physical book in front of me allowing me to just lift my hand and thumb through, flip to a section I’ve tabbed as a “bookmark”, and lift my pen/highlighter and go away at marking it. The only advantage I’ve found with digital is the search feature where you can search the entire text for key words or phrases if you don’t know exactly where you’re looking for something, but that only came in handy when I didn’t actually read the book/section and had to find key information quickly.

Digital books are cheaper, but as mentioned before some people end up printing entire sections or chapters, which does need paper and ink, and that can increase the cost of digital depending on one’s personal printing availability.

I know my D likes digital texts because she says she can search for material easily when completing an open book test or just needing to remind herself of some earlier definitions and such when reading later chapters. I agree that trying out one for a single class is the way to go. Between the digital alternatives and the proliferation of used texts and rentals, I have to wonder how the college textbook industry is faring these days. My D hasn’t purchased a new “real” book for school in years other than a few paperback novels. And one can even highlight in rentals, which astonishes me.

Digital. It’s lighter and youre always connected to the it. You can access it via phone, computer, from the library, etc.

With a real book. You have to keep track of it. It’s heavy AF. And just not that convenient. Also, no one uses it that often

I use paper textbook because for me I can underline and I can keep track of what pages… If I use digital, I will be in Facebook or YouTube and I won’t learn anything.

I read paper books, and some digital books as well. I prefer digital form or research or professional articles, laws and their applications and other professional work; information such as white papers and PDF files that I can refer to repeatedly or want to read later and/or again, and directions for something I must complete, review and submit quickly. I like digital formats for books that I will read for a class, even textbooks if the graphic information is presented clearly, and textbooks I don’t plan to keep.

The price of paper textbooks has soared as students started buying text versions. However, electronic books don’t satisfy all consumers needs. The cost of paper books go up as fewer copies of paper books are printed or sold. Rumor has it that editions of textbook come out more frequently new to support the development of new textbooks and other resources. I think it would be a sad day that we only had electronic devices.

I love books and find that finding a particular bit of information quickly is best accomplished with paper books because I don’t have to page back and forth but recall that the page I want has a graph, picture, format that I quickly recognize. For text books and professional references, I again prefer paper because, if I need to look at information quickly, I can pull the book off the shelf. I also underline in those books to make myself annotated texts that I can skim and/or compare one volume or version to another side-by-side.

I have owned a computer before most of the students on this website were born and maybe many parents too. For those of us who grew up with books and are avid readers, paper books have a familiar or more comfortable feel, smell, heft, and are personalized with notes from family, friends and siblings, include books that I have owned since childhood, or are old friends that I read and reread.

I own hundreds of books with one or two by a chair that I read simultaneously, another one that I keep in my purse if I am stuck in a waiting room and such, and some that I use as decor by piling books and adding a bowl or something spiffy on top. Books have held up a corner of a washing machine, stuffed gaps, and have many household uses. And as Abraham Lincoln could attest, you don’t need electricity or the internet to read.

Recommendation: Save money by getting the international version of textbooks.