The irrationalistic obsession with books, either in the sense of misunderstanding the concepts of their usual contents for the basis of reality (which is logical axioms rather than scientific/historical information), confusing literary assertion for logical/epistemological proof of an idea, or thinking habits other than reading are deplorable, leads some of its adherents to constantly lament the way that some people might use smartphones more than they do books. Someone who uses a smartphone frequently can still read books and enjoy electronic technology, of course, but biases against technology simply because it is technology or because it is new—though any bias is an assumption, and any assumption is irrational to begin with since it is merely assumed—can be clung to alongside a host of false notions about the very nature of literature.
As if one cannot fucking read on a phone, and far more volumes than would likely be physically accessible to a person across their entire lifetime! There is nothing about an electronic screen on a portable device that logically excludes reading books using the technology (just in a digital format, though this also does not exclude reading physical books separately), but far more importantly, nothing is true because a book says it, and thus nothing is verifiable and thus knowable because of books other than what the text actually says: that is, that the text literally contains its own words. The claims of a piece of writing are true if they align with reality. Moreover, no one is intelligent because they own, read, or praise books, and the only intrinsic truths are true and knowable independent of all sensory input altogether [1]. It is the accurate grasping of these necessary truths of logic alone that makes a person intelligent.
In fact, someone who believes that an octopus has copper-based blood, that there are hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, that they can know the amount of cells in their own body (as opposed to the supposed amount), that Jesus did or did not live as a historical figure, or that there was a Battle of Thermopylae in the ancient Greece of 480 BC/BCE because someone else claimed it in a book (or article) is utterly delusional, no matter the source. There is no way to prove from hearsay anything other than that there is hearsay. Nothing more logically follows or is entailed in this regard!
Has the reader been to the bottom of the ocean to see if there are hydrothermal vents? Even then, the logical truths about sensory skepticism would prevent knowledge of what is really beyond the sensory perceptions [2], but without seeing them directly, the reader would be making even more assumptions if they believed based on reported observations or on hearsay of hearsay, as with secondary historical sources, from someone else they have never even met. Was the reader alive in the time of Jesus or King Leonidas? What of Queen Elizabeth or Mary? Can they observe the behavior of electrons or see that protons break down into quarks?
What I am not saying is that such things as the recorded historical presence of Jesus or the alleged material composition of a proton are falsities. Anything that does not contradict the inherent veracity and thus epistemological self-evidence of logical axioms is possible, and all of the things I have mentioned are logically possible, but since they are not true in themselves like axioms and do not follow by necessity from anything that is, they cannot be demonstrated. Perhaps they are true and perhaps they are not, as even if there is evidence for them, it could just be an illusion. Either way, all truth hinges on logical axioms for its very possibility, and no one needs to be prompted by book to grasp that which cannot be false, for the person who doubts or denies reason must rely on its intrinsic truths.
A physically or digitally written/published title can acknowledge the necessary truths that are knowable apart from the prompting of language or sociality, and which are true with or without any writings that affirms them. However, there is nothing irrational about reading, given that a person does not make any assumptions about the nature of reality and looks to reason, and in turn there is nothing irrational or lesser about reading on either a screen or a tangible page. Not only does the kind of person who denies this have to believe or act as if they believe many non sequiturs about what it means for someone to regularly use/enjoy a device like a smartphone (such as that they are stupid or intellectually apathetic), but they are also revering literature far more highly than its logically-dictated nature amounts to.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful.
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