The smell of coffee drifted towards me as I swung open the Barnes and Noble doors. I swiftly walked past the shelves containing hundreds of novels. On a normal occasion, every book that caught my eye would have distracted me. But this time was different. I was on a mission.
I made my way past each shelf to the white, pristine table at the front of the store. Before me stood the one device I had been waiting for. The one device that every book-lover longed for.
A Nook.
Holding the petite, black gadget in my hands, I imagined myself reading infinite amounts of books from the simple piece of plastic.
Paper or plastic. I guess that’s what it came down to. The design, the sleekness, the possibilities. It was all so enticing. I couldn’t resist. The moment I handed the money over to the cashier, my decision was final. Plastic.
My technology-high lasted until I sat down that night to read. Staring at the screen in the dim lighting of my bedroom, I realized something was off. The chapters were there. The letters, the words, the sentences, they were all there. I even could have changed the sizes of them if I had wanted to. But something wasn’t quite right.
Each time I clicked the button to turn the page, a mechanic whirr would echo through the silence of my bedroom. Each whirr gave me chills. It was so forced, so unnatural.
Suddenly, I felt disgusted. I had given in to the deceitfulness that was technology. I had traded the authentic smell, the feeling of textured paper between my fingers, the sense of accomplishment that came with visibly seeing how many pages I had read for a tiny piece of sickening, mechanical plastic.
I was a traitor. Once a devout book-lover, I was now a contributor to the trend of unnatural technology. Was it still considered reading if a book wasn’t in my hands? I never thought such a little black device could cause so much regret.
Conflicted, I shoved the device into the drawer of my dresser. Unable to look at it for the rest of the night, I quickly shut off the light and tried to sleep. My attempts were unsuccessful. Each time I closed my eyes, flashes of typed words on a blinking screen entered my thoughts. I could hear each whirr of the “turning” pages.
Somehow, I could not seem to stay away from the Nook. I couldn’t go without reading, so I continued using the device, feeling treacherous each time I picked up the black piece of plastic.
Several disloyal weeks later, I thought of a compromise: I would get a bookshelf. A large, solid, tangible bookshelf. The Nook, of course, had its own library. But I figured that by having a physical reminder that I still had a love for books, I wouldn’t feel so regretful anymore.
As I placed each one of the novels that I had collected over the years onto the tall black shelf that rested against my bedroom wall, I began to feel more and more like the book-lover I had always been. I walked over to the pile of books on my dresser. The Nook lay beside them.
In that moment, I realized something: it doesn’t matter where or how you read. Adding new things to life doesn’t mean you have to get rid of the old ones. With this newfound mind-set I continued reading on the Nook, feeling less and less guilty each time. Every now and then, though, I would pick up one of my old books, reminding myself what it feels like to run my finger across the smooth, printed pages.
