it or they

Question

"Nowadays, more and more people read e-books. There are some advantages and disadvantages to it. For example, they can easily be carried and quickly bought. On the other hand, it can break easily just by dropping it. Also, you cannot take notes on it. It depends on who uses it whether they are useful and effective."

In this passage, there are both "they" and "it" representing "e-books".
Which should be use?
Shouldn't it be consistent?

Clive · Accepted Answer

You need to distinguish between an e-book and an e-book reader i(e the device).

I suggest this.
"Nowadays, more and more people read e-books. There are some advantages and disadvantages to this. For example, an e-book reader can easily be carried and quickly bought. On the other hand, it can break easily if you just drop it. Also, you cannot take notes on it. Whether it is useful and effective depends on who uses it."

GPY · Answer

Most of the "it"s are presumably intended to refer to an e-book reader, but read incorrectly since that device has not been mentioned. "they" is appears to refer to "e-books", but I question whether that is as intended. Possibly "they" was intended to refer to e-book readers, in which case it is also incorrectly used.

In "There are some advantages and disadvantages to it", "it" can be read (slightly loosely) as meaning "reading e-books", but given the rest of the text it seems debatable whether that was intended. In "It depends", "it" is a dummy "it".

it or they

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