Yes, you read that headline right. According to recently released data from Pew Research, 51% of Americans say they had read “all or part of” 10 or fewer books in the past 12 months. In fact, more people answered that they had read no books in that period (25%) than had read 11 or more books during it (24%).
Of types of books read (a question where multiple answers were allowed), print remains king – and it isn’t particularly close. Even as those reading what I refer to as “dead tree edition” books has dropped since this survey began 15 yrs ago and is now down to less than 2/3 of Americans at 64%, that number is still more than double eBooks (31%) or audiobooks (26%).
Making my own habits certainly among the minority of overall readers. The currently projected 157 books for 2026 would be my lowest throughput since 2018, when I began my book blog, BookAnon.com, halfway into the year, and 100% of my reading is digital in some form. I actively don’t read from dead trees anymore anywhere I can possibly avoid them, even on forms and menus. Not from any environmental concern, I simply prefer the ease, convenience, and portability of screens of various sizes and/ or bluetooth connected devices for audio – and thus I fully embrace that this is a personal preference and don’t judge you (much :D) for preferring dead trees. (If I’m commenting about your choice of amusing yourself via slaughtering forests, it is primarily in jest – I truly don’t actually care and would rather you slaughter thousands of acres of trees so long as you read at all.)
One of the more interesting demographic crosstabs of this survey was actually among who is reading all these dead tree edition books. Specifically, more Zoomers (those currently 18-29 years old) – who we generally associate with all device everything – are actually reading dead trees (66%) than Boomers (those currently 65 years old or older) are (65%)! When it comes to digital books, however, the breakdowns proceed exactly as pretty well anyone would have assumed, with more Zoomers reading more digital books than any other generation, proceeding in order through Boomers having the least numbers of readers reading digital books of either variety.
Similarly, those who graduated college read more than those who attended some college classes who themselves read more than those with only a high school education or less. Again with “common knowledge” among booklandia on gender demographics of readers, more women (78%) than men (71% – a number that will shock some) have read at least part of one or more books in any format in the past 12 months.
And getting back to that base category of “read at least part of one book in the past 12 months”, we may see what may be the biggest shock of all as far as the demographic breakdown of these survey results: Zoomers (78%) read more than any other age group, including Boomers (73%)!
This post was originally posted to my Substack before being crossposted back to this blog and to my Twitter/X Articles.