#51 / JAN 20 2014: WHO READS WITH WHAT & HOW OFTEN

Pew Research is an impressive organization which seems to be concerned with a quite mind-boggling variety of aspects of the American Way of Life. If Pew was a person, he or she could well be described as a polymath.

Actually, under U.S. law, Pew Research almost certainly is categorized as a person (something that needs to be changed when the Constitution is next re-written).

New Year Resolution: Find out more about this outfit.

Here is what Pew Research has to say about U.S. book reading.

The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14% of adults listened to an audiobook.

Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are “e-book only.” Audiobook listeners have the most diverse reading habits overall, while fewer print readers consume books in other formats.

Overall, 76% of adults read a book in some format over the previous 12 months. The typical American adult read or listened to 5 books in the past year, and the average for all adults was 12 books.¹ Neither the mean nor median number of books read has changed significantly over the past few years.

More also own dedicated e-reading devices

The January 2014 survey, conducted just after the 2013 holiday gift-giving season, produced evidence that e-book reading devices are spreading through the population. Some 42% of adults now own tablet computers, up from 34% in September. And the number of adults who own an e-book reading device like a Kindle or Nook reader jumped from 24% in September to 32% after the holidays.

Overall, 50% of Americans now have a dedicated handheld device–either a tablet computer like an iPad, or an e-reader such as a Kindle or Nook–for reading e-content. That figure has grown from 43% of adults who had either of those devices in September.

NOTES

¹ In other words, the mean (average) number of books read or listened to in the past year was 12 and the median (midpoint) number was 5 (meaning that half of adults read more than 5 books and half read fewer.) This mean can be skewed by a relatively small number of very avid readers, which is why the median is a better measure of what the “typical” American’s reading habits look like.