We all know those puritans that believe that paper is the only way to go when it comes to a book. In modern times, however, most of us are going digital for our entertainment needs and life needs. We can even do our groceries online now.

We use our phones to connect to our friends, find love, a good movie and order dinner for once we have this date that we set up on our phones. The truth of the matter is most of us don’t even know our bae’s phone number off by heart.

So why are we still lugging textbooks that are causing us back problems and breaking our bank accounts to buy?

Reasons to go digital

Digital textbooks are cheaper than paper textbooks, you save quite a nice chunk of money if you don’t have to pay the cost of printing and shipping to South Africa.

Digital textbooks often have extra tests in them that you can take at the end of the chapter. These show you where you need to improve and what to focus more on.

Digital is just plain lighter, for the weight of your tablet or if you have one of those laptops that can convert like the Acer Switch we reviewed a while ago. You can go to varsity carrying basically a normal sized handbag unless you need a monster of a laptop for some of your classes (engineers and so on). Even if you are an engineer, carrying your laptop and a tablet is still lighter than your maths textbook and laptop.

Digital textbooks cost less to update so revisions of the textbook is a smaller fee not the cost of a whole new textbook.

Some textbooks link to videos that explain really complicated work or amazing artworks in a far more cohesive way.

The cost of going digital.

While not everyone can afford a laptop or an Ipad, if you do the maths a decent cheap tablet is roughly R2000, this if you look after it, will save you money as it should pay for itself within a year. You can do so much more with a tablet then just use it for textbooks. You can check your Instagram, watch Netflix in bed, respond to emails as well as publish your own blog. If you invest in a keyboard for your tablet, you could even type assignments on it in a pinch.

Have you made the switch to digital or are you planning on?