VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL READING.

Reading is something necessary in the academic and in the no academic life because reading gives us much information in every place, and also it gives us entertainment. Due to these reasons it is important to look for the best alternative in the reading time because nowadays virtual and physical reading is a problematic and polemic issue about which any reader has to be informed, me, as a student who need reading and writing constantly, I need to select the best option to read first of all looking all the points of view, conditions, causes and consequences. We can find many possibilities if we want to read since in some moments we do not have money to buy a physical book, we can find it on internet; but both of these options have some implications in human health, and ecology; not only the physical reading has problems, but virtual reading also can have it. The dilemma is clear, virtual reading gives us ease to read and physical reading let us to enjoy reading moving us away from the technology and some distractions; both of them have advantages and disadvantages. Then, what is the best option? As a result of overuse of resources have developed many problematic situations in the human health, ecology and industrialization, in some moment all of those resources would collapse making us more difficult and expensive the acquisition of literature and another kind of readings; additionally, those problems would increase the laziness within the society due to short supply of literature. When we are reading (informative topics) we look for readings which give us complete information in few words due to lack of time to read, for example the social network Twitter which is based in short messages or micro blogging due to this just let to the writer to write maximum 140 characters, that is why the information is brief and concise, that is a good option for whom need fast information wherever. Despite of the briefly of information like this, virtual reading has disadvantages to. As a result of excessive reading in these kind of technological artifacts human health could be seriously damaged; a meta-analysis showed that the use of monitors by pregnant women represents high risk of spontaneous abortion or low weight at babys birth (Parazzini, F., Luchini, L., La Vecchia, C. & Crosignani, P. G. Video display terminal use during pregnancy and reproductive outcome meta-analysis. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1993 Aug; 47(4): 265-8.). Other researchers concluded that the vision problems are most frequents in those monitors users, this problem has the following symptoms: tension or eye fatigue, irritation, burning, redness, blurred or double vision. These ailments are increasing quickly based on investigations which have shown that 90% of people who uses implements as computers, tablets, and technological products like these, during most of three hours at day; they have these kind of symptomatology (Blehm, C., Vishnu, S., Khattak, A., Mitra, S. & Yee, R. W. Computer vision syndrome: A review. Survey of Ophthalmology. 2005; 50(3): 253-262.). Since that discovering, some scientists called this syndrome as CVS (computer vision syndrome). (Mocci, F., Serra, A. & Corrias, G. A. Psychological factors and visual fatigue in working with video display terminals. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2001 Apr; 58(4): 267-271.). In addition, the excessive use of these objects causes asthenopia (a set of illnesses: Fatigue, ocular discomfort, tearing and headache) (Houston, C. A.,

Jones, D. & Weir, C. R. An unusual cause of asthenopia: "pseudo accommodative insufficiency" associated with a high AC: A ratio. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 2000; 84(12): 1432.). Many people think that to prevent these kinds of sicknesses it is better to read physical texts which have the advantage of versatility since technological objects as tablet, laptop, etc.; frequently are stolen by thief due to them high economic value; for the increasing sales, de editorial world could be affected, so, many people would be unemployed; meanwhile, the author rights would be violated easier because it is easier the virtual plagiarism than the physical. One of the best benefits of physical readings is the possibility of moving away from distractions as social networks, stressing situations and it favors the development of imagination to. However, physical book are so expensive in most of the cases while virtual books are found free in many web pages, this is the solution for people who do not have many money to buy literature; furthermore, the physical books are big and difficult to transport. In fact, a physical book allows us have more control in a reading because we can underline ideas easier than virtual readings, take copies and read in any public place without danger of theft; also, for a writer it type of books is more appropriate; otherwise, his/her author rights are more vulnerable to being plagiarized. In spite of the good reading experience which we can have when we read a physical book, environment is being damaged due to the paper process; Paper can be made of three materials all of them from the environment: trees, leftovers, and recycled paper. It is difficult to have exact information about how many trees are felled daily, but it is possible to know how many of them are felled annually: between 3 and 7 billion, then, we can infer that daily between 8.000 and 17.000 are felled; according to Green Press Initiative, United States of America use more of twenty millions of trees to produce books each year. That information is shocking but just 15% of these 100% of felled trees are reforested. It is the biggest reason which people prefer to read virtually. Nowadays, many people have developed campaigns of reforestation and many others support the eco-edition, which consists in another way to read physically minimizing the environmental damages which are produced along this process of book creation taking into account the raw material (trees) and the working conditions for the workers. In 2003, Greg Kozak of Michigan University, as an investigation from his thesis, he studied the life cycle of paper books and eBooks (virtual books); and he concluded that a paper book create 4 times more gas emission than a ereader (artifact made to read virtual books), also, the printing of books cost 3 times more raw material and 78 times more water consume than eBooks. Moreover, another study of Berkeley University has demonstrated that the electronic newspaper reading emits between 32 and 140 times less CO2 and it uses 27 times less water than print version of the same book. Finally, the problem is clear, any option has their own pros and cons; the reader is who can decide how to read depending on the reading frequency, life style and personal taste but always it is necessary to take into account the environment since, anyway we will be the affected by our own disasters, either if they are health disasters or environmental damages.