The annual World Book Day took place last week, with the aim to encourage young children and teenagers to discover the joys of reading. But how are the adults doing? Toluna Quick asked 2000 men and women aged 18-55 about their reading habits.
An issue affecting the publishing industry at the moment is the disruptive force of digital media and technology. The e-reader has risen to prominence in the last couple of years and e-book downloads sales increasing hugely year on year. While 50 per cent of our respondents have never used a mobile device to read a book, 25 per cent have read on a laptop, 17 per cent on a smartphone and 9 per cent on a tablet. These ways of reading are significantly more popular with the 18-34 age group but, according to our results, e-readers are popular with almost 25 per cent of both the 18-34 and 35-54 age categories.
Furthermore, 16 per cent of our respondents plan to buy an e-reader in the next 12 months. The most appealing aspects of e-readers were cited, in order, as portability; the ability to have more than one book with you at a time; ability to browse and download new books on the spot; access to content such as magazines and newspapers and privacy.
If the publishing industry decided to ditch traditional methods to go entirely digital, a massive 68 per cent of respondents say they would miss the feel of the pages of a book, while the distinctive smell of books and artwork also rank highly. However, 19 per cent claim that they would miss nothing at all about traditional books.
Distractions
Around 42 per cent of people either agree or strongly agree that their use of the web and social media is distracting them from reading books. 28 per cent disagree or strongly disagree with this statement. But whereas previously people might have read a few pages of their book at the end of a lunch break or while waiting for a train, technology enabled habits seem to be taking over:
Send text messages – 35.3%
Browse the web – 33.45%
Read a few pages of book or e-book – 33.2%
Browse a newspaper or magazine – 29.6%
Go on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) – 28.65%
Send emails – 19.65%
Play a mobile game or look at apps – 19.45%
Nothing – 9.7%