Books have been around for centuries yet are constantly changing in their appearance. Evolving from words written on stone, to on scrolls, to being written on paper, to finally being packed together in a booklet.  The question on the future of books is in question.  Will paper books become useless as more and more are being replaced by technology?  With many books being available online, people barely look up from their phones or tablets anymore.

You can talk to people online, go shopping online, play games online, even find out about news online, so writing and reading a book online is a piece of cake. One of the biggest online libraries full of books is a website/app called Wattpad. Wattpad is a writing community in which users are able to post articles, stories, fan fiction, and poems, either through the website or the mobile app.

Wattpad, created in Toronto, Canada was launched in 2006. It brings people from all around the world to read, comment, and like stories. This generates over 100,000 new stories from the over 2 million writers signed up every day. Books from this app have been made into movies such as “She’s Dating the Gangster“, written by Bianca Bernardino and “Just the Way You Are” which was based off a story on the app called “The Bet” written by Ilurvbooks.

Therefore, library buildings may be becoming useless. Hardcovers and paperbacks might be the words of antiques. Why go to the store when you can use a Kindle, Amazon fire or iBooks? Why buy a book for $12 when you can get one for free.

Barnes and Noble, a major dealer when it comes to selling books, was trying to catch up to the technology filled world when they introduced the Nook. A tablet where you buy and read e-books from the comfort of your own home.  The same story goes with Amazon, Kindle, and Apple with the original iBooks. Each company is trying to make a profit by offering a way for you to buy and read books without ever having to leave your home or even look up from your phone.

People say books are no longer needed with the internet being so easy to gain the information desired.  Finding an answer to any history question is at the snap of one’s fingers, leaving history books abandoned.

However actual books, not e-books, can provide a completely different experience. You don’t have to worry about a dying battery or a broken screen. You just feel the pages between your fingers and smell the print. Having access to the book day and night it makes the experience just a tiny bit better. People who collect books for a living love collecting the old and new books that come out, but with the new e-book technology book counts are dropping, sales are dropping.

So the choice to hold an actual book or a piece of technology is something that each person will decide.  The question remains, will the day come when you won’t be able to purchase an actual paper book.  Will future generations never know what it is like to hold a paper book in their hands?