As the development of the information technology, more and more people turn to the computer or other electronic products instead of looking it up in the book when they need to check information. Someone even give a prediction that printed book will disappear after 20 years. However, I disagree with it by claiming that printed books will still be indispensable in the future.
The printed books could not be replaced completely by the electronic devices such as PC, PDA etc. unless we ensure that everyone could have at least one of these products in the next 20 years.
Given the assumption that everyone have his/her own electronic devices with which he/she can read and write and that he/she have enough knowledge to operate on it. she/he is likely to choose to use … more often and abandon printed books. This is understandable because one small device like PDA (personal digital assistant) could include all the information from hundreds of books and one would like to carry so many books everywhere. However, can this assumption comes true? No(需要改,反正就是表示否定). It will have to do with the economic situation to the level that every person is rich enough to have the… and the education level at which everyone have the ability to use the device. It may be easier for developed country achieves this goal, however, there still a long way to go for developing countries at least in 20 years.
Even assume that the electronic products are used widely enough to ensure everyone’s usages, the printed version of a book is indispensable. To begin with, the printed books can be kept as a copy of the electronic documentation in the electronic device when the content is lost in the device due to some software weakness. This is especially true for the documentation with highly importance. Furthermore, one can turn to the printed books when he/she have a tension in his/her eyes because of long time staring at the screen of the devices.
In all, as discussed above, I tend to hold the opinion that printed books will not disappear because of the importance of the printed books as well as the immature economic and educational situation in the next 20 years.