You need to read the economic pages if you don't believe that digital books are taking over. I think it was a few weeks ago that it finally happened but Amazon actually sold more digital books than paper ones. My local librarian who is 62 and pretty old school was dead set against them at first, but even she's reading with a Kindle these days. So are my parents, my 2 best friends, and just about everyone else I know. I'm actually the odd ball out actually still reading most of my e-books on a computer screen, but I like my text pretty big. I never thought I'd see any one of these people reading on a computer of any kind, ever, but they are.
As for the need for making photographic prints I'm not a huge fan of those either. I do print a good photo for the wall once in a while, if I feel I can live with it for a year or more, but for the most part I actually prefer digital frames and displaying a library of my favorite photos rather than displaying the same photos all the time.
My favorite "frames" are actually my computer desktops and the 2 table digital frames one of my nieces got me a few years back, not the old fashioned ones still on the wall. I tend to save the wall space for my movie posters collection and for hanging old hats, plants and other interesting things I collect actually. I still have a few antique photos on the wall, but the more modern stuff is rotating in the digital frames, on the computers etc.
I still use film, for fun, but I usually will digitize my film work. I don't like the darkroom, the chemicals mess with me, and I don't actually feel the need for making prints, most of the time. One day when I can afford them I want to get some really big poster sized digital frames. I love the idea of having them on the wall over the couch etc. The idea that I can change pics every day or just to change the decor as I like actually appeals a lot. I don't feel I need to make tons of prints. What I do need and would really enjoy having are some more digital frames, preferably ones larger than 12" or so.
Modern technology isn't the enemy. I can display a photo or read books just as easily on a screen as I can on paper and it saves trees to do so. No, aesthetically it's not quite the same, but that's okay. I've adapted. I read literally 50 plus books a week. 3/4 of them are library books now or digital ones, but still I seldom used to get rid of any paper books I physically acquired even when I was done with them. Add it up over a few decades. That's a lot of books.
I had a book collection in the 5 figures when I finally decided that I had to go digital. One day I just realized that I wouldn't have room for my furniture soon if I didn't go digital. Except in the bathroom my walls pretty much ALL had bookcases on them, not my posters, that's how many books I had. I'm talking a small lending library worth of books and I wasn't even 30 at the time. My parents they had book cases in 3/4 their house too. Mostly it was my Mom. Like me she could never throw away a book unless it was completely lousy. Now, all those books are gone. That huge library of titles is now on a dozen DVD's and they have room to display some local artwork that used to sit in boxes because they no longer had room to put it up on the walls.
It's far more convenient to have a library on a few DVD's. I do miss the new book smell sometimes, but you know not enough to go backwards. Traveling for a week or so in March I took my laptop and a USB drive with about 50 books on it. It simplified my trip considerably. My only real regret was that I was still using a laptop for reading and email when a pad would have been far lighter and far more convenient. I do mean to get me a small pad computer one day soon. I'm using an old pocket PC to read books on the go for the moment, but that's just not powerful or quite big enough screen-wise for me and I can't go online with it to check email either. But I'm never traveling with a laptop again if I can help it. It's just too heavy and too awkward for me to carry one now and a laptop takes up too much space in my one bag besides. It's space I'd really rather reserve for camera gear, not books, not a laptop.
It was weird at first learning to read digital. But you do get used to it and I feel that the advantages far outweigh any sense of nostalgia I might still feel about using paper books. In the end I switched to digital to save space, save my lungs (Book dust and and book mites are heck on allergies and asthma.) and save trees. As much as I read I just cannot justify not using e-books. Given my reading habits I'd probably kill a decent grove of trees before I croaked myself and there's just no excuse for that given there is a more reasonable alternative now.
