For the interview portion of our research, we interviewed a 19 year-old WWU student, a 52 year-old working adult, and a 70 year-old WWU professor. We found that the college student prefers to read electronic books for the price and convenience. Both the 52 year-old and the 70 year-old prefer reading paper books because they both said they spend enough time on electronics/computers for work all day, so they want reading to be a break from that. Also, the two that prefer paper books said that it has a lot to do with growing up in a generation where technology was not very relevant. When we were comparing book prices of e-books on eBooks.com and paper books online from Barnes & Noble, we found that for all four of the books we researched, the price of a paper book was significantly more expensive than e-books. From collecting data from having people take our survey, we have learned that out of 50 people, 67.3% of those people have more time to read actual printed books instead of e-books. It’s kind of crazy to think that people have more time to read a printed book especially knowing how much people in our generation spends on technology itself. We also found it crazy that 65.3% out of 50 people, think that reading a book on a device is more distracting because in school most of the readings our professors give us are online. Childhood experiences has a major effect on the preference of reading too. More than half of our participants, said that their childhood experiences has had an effect on their preference.
Here is the date we retrieved when comparing the exact same books in their online version from eBooks.com and in their paper version from Barnes & Noble:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
– Barnes & Noble: $12.99
– eBooks.com: $9.99
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
– Barnes & Noble: $16.00
– eBooks.com: $11.99
The Giver by Lois Lowry
– Barnes & Noble: $8.09
– eBooks.com: $7.99
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
– Barnes & Noble: $10.19
– eBooks.com: $7.99