Books vs. E-Readers: Why Does it Matter?

I received my first ebook Christmas of 2009, I was so excited and couldn't wait to purchase and download my first book. My edition was hardly the first to be released and Amazon effectively used advertising methods: such as, TV ads to garner attention to it. This lead to a huge division being made among readers: Books vs. E-Readers. All avid readers should know about this conflict, it isn't as prevalent as it was a couple of years ago but it's still there lingering on the fringes of the reading community.

So, what's the big deal?

I don't know. Isn't it great that the popularity of E-readers is propelling other people to gain an interest in reading, especially as they come with discounts? Books can be pretty expensive and after you accumulate a lot of them over time you have no where to put them or you would have to buy a bigger bookcase. Money, money, money, who's got that lying around? There are of course perks of only reading from books. The main one being the general experience: how the pages feel, the smell of decaying paper, the covers, and collector's items. Who wouldn't want a first edition of Virginia Woolf's "Into the Lighthouse"?

People should really be concerned over whether people are reading enough and be grateful when there are more people reading because an e-reader makes it convenient for them. We want to live in an educated world but we're worried about how people are educating themselves and not what they're educating themselves with. We all know that misinformation is common and ignorance is spread not only by what we hear, but also by what we read. There's a double edged sword to everything, especially when we live in a free flowing informational world.