A new study conducted
by Nielsen has proclaimed that 54% of USA adults currently read eBooks. Not
only is digital on the rise but overall the average person is reading more
books on a yearly basis.
Interestingly, there
appears to be an intersection at work between how Americans read and how much
they read. Those who read either more or exclusively in the eBook format are
more likely to read over 20 books in an average year (30%) than either those
who read more/only in hard copy (18%) or those who read in both formats equally
(21%). They also report a higher average readership per year than either hard
copy hardliners or equal-opportunity readers (22.5 books vs. 16 and 15,
respectively).
Looking at the number
of books purchased in the past year, with a reported average of 14 books, those
favoring eBooks purchased roughly twice as many as those preferring hard
copies, who purchased an average of less than seven.
However, in terms of
overall users, the hard copy format is still king. Nearly half of Americans
(46%) say they only read hard copy books, with an additional 16% saying they
read more hard copy books than e-books. Seventeen percent (17%) read about the
same number of hard copy and e-format books, while 15% read more and 6% read
exclusively in the electronic format.
The Harris Poll was
conducted on behalf of Nielsen and surveyed 2,234 adults in the USA. The
results in this report tend to conflict with the ones in the Pew
Research report that was
conducted in January. Pew mentioned “The percentage of adults who read an eBook
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.”
Interestingly, only
four percent of the survey respondents stated that they are strictly ebook readers,
shunning print entirely.
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