Old fashioned textbooks have been used for centuries. Thousand of textbooks used in elementary, middle, high schools, in colleges, med school, for about any subject from reading to math to science textbooks. Basically, all schools have some sort of textbooks that students use to help them with their studies. Now, everyday new technology is being invented and they have created a device called an “iPad” or a tablet. A tablet works like a computer but it’s a little smaller. Schools have been conflicting about replacing the textbooks with tablets to help the cause of saving trees and not wasting thousand of paper per textbook. Schools have spent $800, 000 on these tablets for the students to use (electronista.com).   There are many helpful things that iPads can do for us, but it would do more damage than being a helpful resource.

To start off with, iPad is 9.5 inches tall and 7.3 inches wide with a 9.7 inch screen measured diagonally. The iPad is very thin and weighs only 1.44 pounds. This device works just like an iPhone, which contains a camera, apps, internet access, etc (computerworld). Teenagers spend hours on their phones daily on Insatgram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. and often leads to procrastination so why wouldn’t they do the same when they are supposed to be a reading a passage out of the “Online Textbooks”? The students can easily be distracted by the tablet because either they are taking a moment to snap a “selfie” or they have to check if their make-up if on point. By bringing in the tablets into classroom, it’s just another way of giving an invitation to late homework assignments (decodedscience.com). If schools update their technology and replace the old-fashioned textbooks with tablets, the students will never get anything done because of the distraction the technology holds.

Next, spending hours on a bright screen, reading several chapters isn’t well for the health of a person. Sitting on a chair staring into a screen can cause something called “computer vision syndrome” (articles.nydailynews.com). This can cause someone to have a blurred vision, headaches, eyestrains, and dried eyes. There is a high risk of carpal tunnel syndrome (The Text Neck Institute website). Spending hours on smart phone is just as bad as reading a chapters on a tablet. Staring at a small screen that creates a glare makes it difficult to focus or understand what is being read. It is another way of being distracted. Like said, looking at a bright screen can be harmful to anybody and everybody. A study was found that screen time is associated with structural and functional changes in brain regions involving emotional processing, executive attention, decision making, and cognitive control.  The radiation beaming off of the screen is not healthy and can cause cancer as research has been proven.
Lastly, tablets can break easily and is a pain to fix. Like phones, when it drops on the drops on the ground, there is a chance of the phone cracking and eventually it starts to glitch (articles.nydailynews.com).  Tablets run out of battery really quick and it dies real quick if it isn’t being charged! Tablets or iPads cost $300-$400 when textbooks cost $80-$120.  Tablets break really easily and it is very costly repairing them. When reading on a tablet, a virus can upload on the tablet or it could be really slow. It can be very time consuming when the tablet is very slow to load. As for textbooks, the pages are right in front of you and the pages can be easily found. No need to worry about the battery life. Pages can be easily turned back and forth at your desired pace and no glare would reflect off of the book. There would be no encountering problems when reading out of the textbooks like loading for the longest time, or having a virus pop on the screen.

  Some people may say that tablets are very light in weight and help the environment by saving thousands of pages and that it can hold many books in one device as well as store a lot of data depending on the Gigabyte plan. Tablets can be easily stored in a bags or backpacks and be taken wherever you go. However, tablets would need high maintenance to keep it working. After a couple of years using the tablet, it starts to slow down gradually and would eventually need a battery replacement (tablets.findthebest.com). Using electricity for the tablets is not good for the environment. Like said, technology is being invented every day and soon will be taking over the world. To keep that from happening, schools should not invest money into buying these products. Textbooks have a longer life span than a tablet. A tablet could live for at most 2 or 3 years when the textbooks could last decades and could be reused. Once tablets are broken, it cannot be used again, so as a result, another tablet would need to be bought as a replacement (educationbusinessblog.com.)  As for textbooks, once done using it, it could be reused by other students which is helping out with the environment. Textbooks online can be an unreliable source and can be edited by other people resulting in false information.

Tablets can be helpful and useful in many different ways, but not for students at school when they need to read chapters out of their chemistry books. This type of technology creates many problems and can create frustration into students. Textbooks are straight forward and can be easily used with no health risks. Schools can save so much money by not updating their style of reading out of textbooks. Textbooks last longer than Tablets and there are hardly ever any difficulties reading out of a textbook.

Bibliography
1. Electronista, "Digital Textbooks May Save Schools $250 Per Student Per Year," electronista.com, May. 21, 2015
2. Mikael Ricknas, "Average Tablet Price Drops to $386, Says IMS Research,” www.computerworld.com, May 21, 2015
3. Thomas Adams, "Textbook Weight in California: Data and Analysis," California Department of Education website, May 21, 2015
4. LearnStuff, "Graduating with Technology," learnstuff.com, Aug. 17, 2012
5. New York Daily News, "iStrain: Tablets and iPads Can Cause Eye Problems," articles.nydailynews.com, May 21, 2015
6. Dean Fishman, "Neck Pain from Texting," The Text Neck Institute website, Nov. 2, 2010
7. Lee Wilson, "Apple's iPad Textbooks Cost 5x More Than Print,"   (193 KB) educationbusinessblog.com, May 21, 2015
8. Lesley Lanir, "Digital Information Overload Overwhelms and Distracts Students," decodedscience.com, May 21, 2015
9. FindtheBest, "What Is the Average Battery Life of a Tablet Computer?,” tablets.findthebest.com May 21, 2015