A recent survey shows the number of people who read books is going down, while far more people are reading online. Are you one? The Internet is very convenient: young people especially are using it to replace newspapers, magazines, books and television. For many young people, there is only one kind of book: schoolbooks.
 Dating, horoscopes, shopping, homework and banking can now all be done online. Online dictionaries and encyclopedias can provide information far faster and more up-to-date than printed sources or even CDs.
Books are not dead
 Let me put my cards on the table. I’m 63, but I use the Internet daily. Printed matter no longer plays as big a role in my life as it used to do. But I cannot imagine a world without books. A British friend once said to me, “Gutenberg introduced printing to Europe but he didn’t make handwriting obsolete.” Just as books did not replace writing, computers will not completely replace books.
Books galore!
 There are so many books that it would be impossible to put them all online. The Library of Congress in Washington, DC has over 110 million items. The British Library in London has about 150 million items, and 3 million new items are added every year.
Danger!
 er! If the light is poor, all kinds of reading damage your eyes. Technology has improved recently, but it is still bad for your eyesight to look at a computer screen for too long.
Books are easy to access
 If you want to read a book, you don’t have to turn it on, try again and again to connect to the website you are looking for and wait until your computer has restarted after a crash!
 So think twice before you throw your books away! (Word count: 294)