E-book and printed book penetration
According to data from Statista’s Market Insights: Media & Advertising, e-book penetration still trails that of printed books in the vast majority of countries around the world. In the United States for example, 20 percent of the population are estimated to have purchased an e-book last year, compared to 30 percent who bought a printed book. China is the only country of those studied that saw the opposite trend, with only 24 percent of people having bought a printed book in the 12 months prior to the survey, while around 27 percent of people bought an e-book in that time frame.
You will find more infographics at StatistaDespite the shift to digital in almost all aspects of media consumption in recent years, a perhaps unlikely renaissance is occurring in the world of books. As figures from Publishers Weekly show, having fallen quite dramatically between 2008 and 2012, good old-fashioned printed book unit sales have been steadily rising in the United States since.As our infographic shows, this recovery picked up extra pace during the pandemic, too. According to Publishers Weekly, the 2021 increase was led by fiction titles. "The young adult fiction segment had the largest increase, with unit sales jumping 30.7%, while adult fiction sales rose 25.5%. Sales in the juvenile fiction category increased 9.6%".
You will find more infographics at StatistaIn the United States, 44 percent of women said reading was one of their main pastimes versus 30 percent of men. When looking at the U.S. adult surveyed population with both genders combined, the share of people selecting reading in response to this question increased with age (30 percent of 18-19 year olds, 32 percent 20-29 year olds, 36 percent 30-39 year olds, 38 percent for 40-49 year olds, 41 percent 50-59 year olds, 44 percent 60-64 year olds).
You will find more infographics at Statista83 percent of respondents to the poll claimed to have read at least one book in the past year, a percentage similar to previous polls from 2016 and 2005. This indicates that reading, be it on paper or in digital form, is still very much one of the favorite pastimes of U.S. residents. The drop in mean number can be explained by fewer people reading larger amounts of books per year. Still, the percentage in this bracket is pretty sizable: 27 percent of respondents finished or started more than 11 books in 2021, with 6 percent even tackling more than 51 tomes of knowledge and entertainment. When taking demographic indicators into consideration, the past year's numbers have largely been propped up by college graduates and young adults, of which 35 and 31 percent, respectively, read more than 11 books.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Even political scientists can’t agree on the meaning of a “revolution,” but at the very least, we can agree that living through a revolution means living through extraordinary change in a relatively brief period.
ReplyDeleteDefining revolution as “extraordinary change in a relatively brief period” seems to leave out books and literacy. But surely, they have produced some of the largest and most permanent changes.
A book, the Bible, replaced Temples, and Law Courts as the center of authority. Books have made religion and culture highly portable, and through literacy, the printing press, and now digital platforms it was made knowledge available to all.
Napoleon looks pretty puny in comparison, a tempest in a teapot.
The industrial revolution may have changed things a lot especially for large numbers of people, but it is still built upon energy demands that we may never be able to meet.
I find the durability of books in this changing world encouraging. I don’t think that I read more books than other people, but I have found books to be far more enlightening than what is present in popular media.
Jack, you're right that the Fareed Zakaria interview left books and literacy out of his analysis of revolution. In fact I would put Gutenberg's press and the resultant expansion of literacy and books ahead of both 1600 Holland and the French Revolution in importance.
DeleteI still prefer print books, though I do sometimes read digital ones, especially if I don't see myself keeping them around.
And unfortunately I am one of the readers who is less voracious than I used to be. I'm sure it has something to do with the time I spend scrolling around on my tablet or phone.
Interesting that there was a literacy revolution in the West with Gutenberg, though that played out over centuries, with the Lutheran countries having higher rates of literacy right off the bat, but literacy coming much more slowly to Britain, France, Italy, and Spain. The U.S. had comparatively high literacy rates in Puritan colonies because of free public education. Literacy among elites in the South was high, but very low among poor whites and just about nonexistent for slaves.
ReplyDeleteNow 85 percent of people on earth are literate, but I keep hearing commentators Raber listens to talk about "low info voters." Despite the fact that virtually everybody in the U.S. can read, not everybody is necessarily well informed. Problem seems to be a combination of lack of engagement with current events, exposure to misinformation, and mistrust of mainstream sources of info.
So not sure what literacy or book-reading indicates exactly.
Highly literate populations elected some mighty awful people.
Highly literate people deny climate change, evolution, and insist the world is flat.
Highly literate people thought horse wormer would cure covid.
Highly literate people are spending hours typing "funny cat videos" into their Google search boxes.
I read three or four times the number of books as the average American, but it hasn't made me nicer or more likely to go to Heaven.
Even literate people believe what they want to believe. The big question is, what drives their wants?
DeleteSorry. Aging English teacher here with way too many opinions about "literacy."
DeleteI guess I see literacy--the ability to read--as neutral. It's not good or bad in itself.
More important is that, once they can read, everybody should be encouraged to read books that promote human engagement--that is, that promote understanding and empathy with others, the absorption of cultural values, and info about policies that affect their lives.
I suppose that's "cultural literacy," a term I dislike because it's associated with E.D. Hirsch's academic, elitist notions about the Western canon. But if everybody can read, you hope it makes them better individuals and contributes to the collective good.
Well, I hope that, anyway.
The public high school I attended used to require a class of seniors called "Modern Problems". It was part civics, part economics, and part giving book reports and oral reports on current issues. I don't know if they still have that class, I hope so. Guess I'll find out when we go out to the graduation party for my great-nephew in a couple of weeks.
DeleteThe book I gave a report on was "The Other America" by Michael Harrington. I was rather critical of it and got an A. Nowadays I might be a little kinder to it. LOL I broke up with the boyfriend who recommended it to me, but that didn't have anything to do with books.
Anyway I think courses like that would encourage more cultural literacy.
I guess I see literacy--the ability to read--as neutral. It's not good or bad in itself.
DeleteSaint Ignatius would likely classify literacy along with wealth and power as morally neutral, they can be used for good or bad ends.
However as means they enable us to do things that we might otherwise not have been able to do.
From an early age, I found literacy removed me from the limitations of the working-class environment where I grew up.
I certainly knew a lot more than my age mates, my parents and relatives, the people who lived in my town and in many cases, my teachers and pastors.
My scores on various tests of literacy produced a certain amount of awe among my teachers. I was always somewhat skeptical of those tests. When I guessed at the answers, I never had the feeling that I knew the right answers. But when people began to bow and let me do what I wanted, or at least let me alone because they didn’t understand me, I was very grateful.
All through my work life I have lived in two worlds, well captured by notion from research about academia that there are cosmopolitans (faculty who identify with their research colleagues across the country) and locals (faculty who find their identity in the students whom they taught or in their service to the university and local community).
In the mental health system, I was both cosmopolitan and local. Almost all the initiatives that I did in both policy and data analysis at the local level were shared in peer-reviewed presentations at national conventions. Those local initiatives benefitted from the ideas, insights and hard work of local people. They just did not have the cosmopolitan vision that I shared with others. When I wrote grant proposals to a cosmopolitan audience, money began to flow, and presentations at national meeting followed.
The mental health board highly valued professional continuing education, funding people to go to national meetings. They were doubly pleased to find that we could present innovative practices as well as consume them. I frequently included clinicians and consumers as panelists and discussants in the presentations.
I have no doubt that cosmopolitan groups can be mistaken in their thinking with ivory tower notions that just do not work in real life. That is why I agree with Francis that we must keep our feet on the ground and not follow every passing parade. On the other, had we must avoid becoming museums of the past. We should be both cosmopolitan and local.
It was Plato or Aristotle who said literacy erodes memory. And lots has been written about the tradeoffs/difference between literacy and orality. I recommend Fr Walter Ong if anyone is interested in that.
DeleteYes, I reading was my way of ignoring working class imperatives: Graduate high school, buy a car, get a "decent" skill like nursing or oral hygiene, save money, get married to a guy with a good job in the Dow plant, buy a house near your parents, have kids, preferably all before age 30.
DeleteMy dad said none of this would happen if I didn't get my nose out of a book and spend more time trying not to look "mousey." He worried endlessly about my being a homely old maid.
Anne, if you're reading this, I hope you have recovered well from both cataract surgeries.
ReplyDeleteI read two types of books: fiction, for relaxation; and books on theology, spirituality and similar topics for diaconal continuing education / professional development (as well as for personal edification). For the former, I prefer e-books, because they are inexpensive and very convenient. For the latter, I prefer paper books, because they are more permanent and I tend to use them as reference books (or at least keep them around for that purpose). I am not certain that approach is rational, but it's what I've settled on.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see a mention of audio books in Jack's post. (Or if it is there I missed it.). I guess we could classify them as a type of e-book? They are fairly popular in my circle, although I think podcasts have been displacing them in recent years. (At least that is my observation; I don't know whether any statistics actually bear that out.)
ReplyDeleteI've tried audio books a couple of times. I find that I tend to start "spacing out", and miss chunks of what is being narrated.
I would also tend to space out, or go to sleep with audio books.
DeleteI now "read" mainly audiobooks. I could not sit down and just listen, or I would fall asleep. I started reading e-books (Kindle) fairly soon after they became available. Before that, I spent a lot of money buying books, and I had limited space to store them, so switching to e-books saved me money and space. When I switched from e-books to audiobooks, the time I devoted to listening was time when I couldn't read a physical book (like on the treadmill) or time when I was on the move and would have been carrying a book (like riding the subway).
DeleteI recently compiled a list of the audiobooks I have listened to that ran longer than 25 hours. I am including it below for the fascination of all.
Les Misérables: Translated by Julie Rose
By: Victor Hugo, Julie Rose - translator 60h 26m
Christianity:
The First Three Thousand Years
By: Diarmaid MacCulloch 46h 29m
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius
of Abraham Lincoln
By: Doris Kearns Goodwin 41h 32m
A History of Western Philosophy
By: Bertrand Russell 38h 3m
David Copperfield
By: Charles Dickens 31h 7m
Middlemarch
By: George Eliot 31h 57m
These Truths: A History
of the United States
By: Jill Lepore 29h
The Woman in White
By: Wilkie Collins 27h 59m
Redemption Ark
By: Alastair Reynolds 27h 18m
Absolution Gap
By: Alastair Reynolds 27h 10m
The History of the Ancient World:
From the Earliest Accounts to
the Fall of Rome
By: Susan Wise Bauer 26h 20m
Secret City: The Hidden History
of Gay Washington
By: James Kirchick 26h 15m
An Army at Dawn:
The War in North Africa (1942-1943):
The Liberation Trilogy, Volume 1
By: Rick Atkinson 26h 5m
My current audiobook is Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. I may write about it here when I finish listening. His argument is that the rapid switch (in the 2010s) from a "play-based" childhood to a "phone-based" childhood is doing serious damage to young people. See End the Phone-Based Childhood Now: The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development. in The Atlantic (paywall) or a YouTube video of an interview with Haidt on the PBS show Firing Line.
DeleteSome parents now are giving their kids flip phones rather than smart phones, since they are much more limited in what they can do. Since there aren't pay phones any more, they can't do like my parents did, and say "Always carry a quarter in case you need to call home."
DeleteI have been using e-books for four years and audio books for around two years and I think I know now how to use, along with standard books, these reading sources. I read e-books, read printed books and listen to audio books. What some of you see as a problem, falling asleep, is actually what I use to fall asleep. Nothing intellectually demanding, and I found the writings of Stephen King and Dean Koontz to be very effective. I start a half-hour timer and before it's done, I am out. I then back it up the next night to cover what I missed. At some point, I am hearing the words but not understanding the sentences. I know then that blessed dreamtime is around the corner.
DeleteThomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica is great for insomniacs.
DeleteFree audio here: https://librivox.org/author/1199?primary_key=1199&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results&search_order=alpha
I have a bedside AM/FM clock radio (which I must have bought when I was in college or shortly thereafter, and which refuses to die) which is tuned to our local classical music station. I turn it on when I get into bed . I read until I realize that the words are just flowing by without my absorbing them; then I know it's time to sleep. My last act before turning off the light is to press the one-hour-delay-stop button on the antique clock radio. The music continues for another hour, and then turns off. 99% of the time, unless I am really stressed out about something, I am in the Land of Nod before the radio turns itself off. Not all classical music is soothing, but our local station tends to pick soporific choices for that time of the night.
DeleteDavid, I'm impressed by how challenging some of those books must be to listen to. I don't think I could make it through "Les Miserables"!
DeleteGeez, doesn't anyone check out library books? When I am able to get to the library, I like to talk to the staff about what they're reading and shoot the breeze. Mostly I order books though ILL that Raber picks up for me.
ReplyDeleteI don't get e-books because you can't share them.
I like to go to the actual library too, now that we have one. Our new one finally is finished. It seems like people are going to it. I was afraid people wouldn't go back. For two years the library was shoved into an old building. They tore down the previous library and built the new one on the same site.
DeleteI only get e-books if I figure no one else is going to be interested in reading them.
I bought a lot of Kindle books when I was still working. I get alerts from Book Bub if there are $1.99 deals on titles in my area of interests. But I am nearly 100 percent dependent on the library now.
DeleteI gave away my physical books except for a half dozen that belonged to my mother. It's a way of hanging on to a few of the good memories I have of her. Plus my dad's copy of Ivanhoe, a book on his top five most hated things, that included the Republican Party, people who mistreated their pets, a messy car, and anything with rice in it.
I have avoided fetishizing paper books for the most part. That tends to be a problem for a lot of English major types. They buy books, often multiple copies of books, and display them to impress themselves and others with the quantity and quality of their selections. Akin to having the size of your brain on display.
There have been many rancorous discussions about this in my online book group over the years. People proudly posted photos of their "collections" that looked more like serious hoarding problems to me.
Blah blah. Rattling on ...
Jean, I have kept some of my books that I liked a lot (not all of them). I figure that my memory might get worse as time goes by, and I can re-read the favorites and it would be like a new experience. Of course the irony would be that I don't like them anymore.
DeleteMy friend Lois is slowly losing cognitive and memory function. She cannot read new novels, but re-reads a lot of old favorites in hopes of keeping the gist of the stories as long as she can. She is still aware of what's happening and says it's like being on a boat and watching the shore recede without any way to get back. It's so sad.
DeleteI do use our library for some things. But the thing I want to read may not be in our library's inventory, or may have a long wait list. I've used interlibrary loans a few times. It can take anywhere from a few days to several months for the item to arrive. And it's so darn easy - too easy - to tap the screen a few times to just have it downloaded onto the Kindle, and it usually costs < $10.
DeleteMichigan may have a unique ILL system. Every public community and university library's inventory is plugged into a central online system. You search for the title, select it, and the first copy available gets sent to your community library in three or four days. I don't read many blockbuster bestsellers, and I have a to-be-read list I keep on my computer. So if a popular book is not readily available, I just go to the next title.
DeleteAt my current reading rate, buying Kindle books would be $40-60 a month, which I can't afford.
I also did a lot of work for the state library association years ago, and I know that when people don't use libraries, they get defunded. Not a problem if you can buy whatever you want for your own use. Using your library keeps it alive for poor people, and it costs you nothing.
Our state has a similar system for ILL, for print books. There is Overdrive/Libby for digital ones, and the library has to pay a fee to belong to those. To some degree tax funds support that, but the smaller town libraries can't afford it. Their patrons can pay a small fee and belong to the state library, and have access to the digital platforms. Our library here is free for the residents of the county. If you are out of county you have to pay $35 a year to belong. Which creates some hard feelings with communities just over the county line.
DeleteLibrary mandates, services, and funding methods vary a lot by state. Ohio's public library system used to be the gold standard as far as funding was concerned.
DeleteInterestingly, libraries are one thing that tend to have wide bipartisan support in most communities. I worked as a trustee myself and as a liaison with trustees around the state at the library association. Rich, moderate Republicans make great trustees. They love having their names on reading rooms, special collections, and services, etc, and they have connections with other rich people they can put the squeeze on to fund extras. They also tend to take the job seriously and make good decisions.
My wife and I have stumbled upon the "Thursday Murder Club" series, a very popular (and highly enjoyable) series of murder-mystery books. I bought the first one on Kindle and loved it. My wife was intrigued. I offered to let her borrow my Kindle, but she prefers books in hard copy, so she went to our library. I think she was 12th on the list. She waited it out (not that she lacked for other things to read in the meantime) and within about six weeks got it. It's a pretty breezy read so she had it back to the library for the next person on the list within a few days.
DeleteThe more people who use the library, the better librarians can anticipate what patrons want and allocate $$ to acquire multiple copies of books in paper, electronic, and audio formats to reduce reserve wait times.
DeleteUnrelated, Nebraska and Iowa suffered at least seven tornados yesterday. We are grateful that so far there are no reports of fatalities. But over 100 homes were destroyed, and many people were injured. We and our family members are safe and our homes are intact.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are ok. I was worrying about you when I saw the television images of (giant!) funnel clouds.
DeleteBtw, an e-newsletter that hit my inbox this morning included this:
ReplyDelete"Just 54 percent of Americans said they read a book in the year 2023. Seventy-three percent of Americans without a college degree said they did not read a book that year. If you read four books last year, you read more books than 62 percent of your fellow Americans."
I should add: personally, my sense of the passage of time is not very accurate. So I would tend to think these numbers are higher than what is actually true; I could imagine a person thinking to him/herself, "Yes, I read a book some time ago", and only guessing it was within the past year.
DeleteAll the college and university libraries in the state of Ohio participate in interlibrary loan. Once I retired, I began taking courses at our local community college. You can audit them free as a senior citizen. You just have to wait to register right before classes begin so that regular students can get their pick of courses. Of course you must pay for textbooks which sometimes can be expensive, but there are usually lower priced used textbooks, and you can usually resell your textbook.
ReplyDeleteBut one can get any book (not on reserve) in any higher education library delivered to the local community college library for free. The loan period was for three weeks, renewable if the home library did not ask for the book back because one of their students wanted it.
It was a good way to examine books for purchase. If I decided I wanted to underline a book, I simply purchased it from Amazon or elsewhere.
Betty likes my underlined books. It makes reading them much easier, and she then knows what I think is important about the book so it is much easier to talk to me about the book.