The Pew Research Center said that about 65 percent of surveyed adults had read a paperback or hardcover book over the past year compared to 28 percent who had read an e-book.
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In the past year, 65 percent of USA adults surveyed said they read a book in its printed form.
Audiobook use increased slightly from the previous year, up two percentage points from 2015. “Each of these figures is largely unchanged since 2011, when Pew Research Center first began conducting surveys of Americans’ book reading habits”, said the center in a press release. As great as both tablets and e-readers can be, it’s good that people still prefer print.
The survey was conducted from March 7 through April 4, and used a national sample of 1,520 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 USA states and the District of Columbia.
As Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble launched their respective eBook readers in 2007 and 2010, there were many who rushed to predict that the printed book would soon be meeting an untimely end. Thirteen percent of adults in the United States said that they used their cellphones for reading over the past year, up from 5 percent in 2011.
Overall, 73 percent of Americans 18 and over read a book over the past year, up one percentage point from 2015. While printed books are pretty much the go-to choice for most readers, the percentage of readers reading eBooks has jumped significantly since 2012, when 23 percent of readers read an eBook. About 40 percent of Americans read print books exclusively, compared to 6 percent who read digitally.
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Maybe “Infinite Jest” will be easier to finish if I read it on a smartphone?
