"On average across the world people spend 6.5 hours a week reading. The most of amount time spent reading is in India (10.7 hours), the least Korea (3.1 hours). UK is very near the bottom at 5.3 hours, Germany and USA a little higher at 5.7 hours.
The Chinese listen to radio less than any other nation (2.1 hours a week), Argentina the most (20.8 hours).
On average people now spend more time on the Internet for leisure (not work) than reading - 8.9 vs 6.5 hours. Mexico uses the Internet for leisure least (6.3 hours) and Taiwan the most (12.6 hours).
Internet use reduces the time people have for reading by around 20%.
40% of Europeans do not read books.
More people use the Internet for leisure than read books in the developed world."
From Richard Charkin's blog (CEO of Macmillan publishers in the UK). Discovered via one of my favorites - BuzzMachine
The UK book publishing industry's Statistical Yearbook 2005
Technorati Tags: Reading, Library
1 comment:
What are these people doing on the Internet for hours and hours if not reading? Sure, they're probably spending some time with games, looking at images, listening, etc. but reading must take up a pretty good chunk of those hours.
I think the fact that Internet use and reading are seen as mutually exclusive by some people is actually more interesting than the statistics used here. There's plenty of overlap between the two, right?
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