The inevitable end of printed media

I myself really am not very fussy when it comes to the medium I use to get my information. I have a shit ton of books, but they are mostly things which I found on the cheap while sifting trough used book stores, or books I have bought that I found by chance and really couldn't resist picking up. I mostly get my news online, though I do catch a television news program every now and again. I used to read the paper every day when I lived with my folks, but I've honestly never seen the point since I've gotten access to the net, which happened when I moved out of my folks house.


What I'm curious about is the often mentioned fact that reading on a computer is ecologically more responsible and sustainable than using paper is. Now this is nothing but pure curiosity, as I don't have the least bit of an idea how one would go about making these calculations, but does anyone know how much energy we are actually saving by not printing? And how is it possible to measure the potential re-use of printed material in this equation? Must we then perform the calculation for each different category of printed media (newspapers, books, textbooks, etc.), or is the difference in resource conservation so substantial that it doesn't really matter?

Edit:

Well, I did find an article in the Journal of Industrial Ecology which details the energy consumption of a traditional library system versus that of a digital library system for journal articles. An interesting read, even if it is a bit dated (2003), considering the subject matter. Turns out that riding a bike or taking the bus to get your books and articles is the most significant way to reduce energy waste, moreso than switching from print to a digital medium, but this is hardly a surprise.

This has piqued my curiosity quite a bit, so I'll update with further findings in case anybody is as interested in this as I am.

Here is a link to the Summary of the article, there's a link to dl a PDF a bit lower on the page.

Digital versus Print: Energy Performance in the Selection and Use of Scholarly Journals - Gard - 2008 - Journal of Industrial Ecology - Wiley Online Library

Jam it back in, in the dark.