One of the many recurring debates I have with my parents starts whenever I buy a new roll of film or bring back a stack of paperbacks from the bookshop. They express their befuddlement at inconveniencing myself with physical media when they would have been overjoyed to have grown up with a camera on their phone, ready to take a photo at a moment’s notice, or a compact tablet with a whole library at their disposal.
With the rising number of Gen Z choosing physical books over ebooks and even indulging in other forms of analogue media, it is clear there is much more to media consumption than the simple matter of convenience. Availability may become a fault of digitisation, where the over-saturation of choice leaves us devoid of resolution.
There is a stark intentionality in going to a bookshop, picking up a spine that takes our fancy, skimming the blurb, and either committing to bringing it home or continuing the search. You go to the till and pay for it with your own money, bring it to your home and put it on your shelf, or start reading it immediately if you’re desperate. This whole process cultivates a deep sense of ownership that cannot be replaced by seeing a small square of the book you just purchased on your e-reader. Tied into the larger issue of ownership issues seen in films and TV, e-books also face the same issue of being subject to the whims of companies such as Amazon on Kindle, as they may modify or take down any content you buy. It is an uncomfortable thought that what you paid for may not actually belong to you.
Many book lovers can attest to the sensory experience of a book: hearing the crisp sound of a page being flipped, the smell of the pages and even observing how floppy it is. The cult of margin annotators also deserves a mention. These all add up to the rewarding nature of reading, where building a collection of books allows for long-term satisfaction, whilst promoting us to value each book.
Book collecting becomes a hobby in itself, which is always a positive for community building. We’ve all heard the laments of Gen Z’s antisocial behaviour due to technology, allowing libraries and bookstores to remedy this by giving people even the simple joy of leaving the house. Next time the same debate comes up, I will gladly defend the joys I have received from perusing the shelves at my local bookshop and opening up my new book as soon as I get home.
Illustration Via Katya-Roberts @katyaillustrates for The Student