Poll: 3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper books

[william z]

I must be in the minority. Since getting my first e reader over two years ago I have read a couple of hundred books on it, and just one paperback.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I hear you.
My to-do list includes re-ripping everything to a high bit-rate for the home audio systems. I keep running into interesting reads that derail that plan...

This is one case where prevarication is your friend.

Put it off long enough, and your hearing will have deteriorated sufficiently that you won't be able to tell the difference. (Been there ....)

/JB

[xg4bx]

I've gone back to pretty much 99% paper books. I just love all the old standbys like the feel/smell, plus I still get excited when I have a package on its way.

The immediacy of digital goods kills the ''thrill of the hunt'' for me. I like anticipation, I enjoy waiting, I like searching for a good deal on things.

[PurpleStar]

I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other, but I read both ebooks and paper books. I have read a few paper books this summer and my next read will be a paper book I checked out of the library. Sure, I like to read on the fancy e-reader, but it's not really a necessity, just a luxury and maybe a bit more convinient. To me a book is a book whether it's an e-book or a paper book.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by PurpleStar

I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other, but I read both ebooks and paper books. I have read a few paper books this summer and my next read will be a paper book I checked out of the library. Sure, I like to read on the fancy e-reader, but it's not really a necessity, just a luxury and maybe a bit more convinient. To me a book is a book whether it's an e-book or a paper book.

That sums it up nicely for me. At first I wanted to read everything on Kindle--fast, convenient and RIGHT THERE, RIGHT NOW. Eventually I went back to my old ways of checking the library, ILL, shopping for paperbacks, shopping for ebooks--just whatever. I read them all. I don't care how they get to me.

[Lemurion]

I just find I put down paper and never pick it up again. I actually read my ebooks.

[jersysman]

I just prefer my ereader and ebooks. The ereader has help bring to my attention authors that I would never have read if I were still only reading paper books. Free ebooks and relatively low priced ebooks have afforded me this opportunity. I also carry my ereader with my always. It is a lot easier for me to carry and store than a paperback book. I still have paperback books to read that I had previously and have been given to me. I just cannot see myself buying pbooks any more.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by william z

I must be in the minority. Since getting my first e reader over two years ago I have read a couple of hundred books on it, and just one paperback.

No you are not in the minority by a long shot. I'm seeing more and more people on trains and buses reading with ereaders, tablets, me with my Samsung GMP-5, and I remember some of them used to be reading paper books or newspapers. Now they are using these devices to read instead.

I stopped buying ppbks years ago, and settled for reading fan fiction on my pc. With the discovery of ebooks/ereaders I'm back to reading at least 100 published books a year.

I'm not going back to paper!

[Geco]

3 out of 4 Americans can't probably use ebooks or PCs or whatever. Maybe it's the same here in Italy,if you interview > 50/60 yo people...

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

I'm kind of with Andrew here. All of my reference material comes from the internet and is viewed via computer, but I'll be damned if I'll try to use an e-reader for that kind of task. Damned if I'll use paper anymore either, while we're gedunkin'

Well, I don't read my reference material on an e-reader either (mostly because none of it is formatted for epubs, not because it couldn't work), but my understanding of the poll was that they were claiming that people preferred DTBs to e-books, not physical paper to e-readers.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

That you tolerate reading into the gutter doesn't bother me. (an esoteric binding reference I'm rather proud of!)

As you should be!

[Kai Winters]

I'll not read a "paper" book again unless I've no choice...but...many people are just not digitally synched and are leery of an ereader device. Age is somewhat part of it though my 82 year old mother loves her Kindle Fire and reads books on it as well as viewing pics of the family and keeping up online via FB.

I work with people that don't own a computer and shudder when having to learn a basic function on our work system...Oracle, etc. Some have refused saying "I break them"...honestly some actually do by randomly hitting keys when they mis hit a key and have no idea what to do...it is amusing until I'm the one asked to fix the problem.

To speak in favor of books...you can and do find hundreds of books at yard/garage/etc. sales literally for pennies each. Easy to pick up a dozen books for a buck.
Some people just don't/won't learn how to use them thinking they are unable or just don't want to bother to actually "learn"...dern Luddites hehehe

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

If it's selected properly, it is enough for a good sampling. I have no idea if it was selected properly, although these are actual professional pollers.

None of these points matter for their poll, which was designed *only* to see what Americans in general thought of e-books vs. paper books. An experienced e-reader is still only one individual.

The "location" question matters. Unless they sample a broad range of American locales, they can't find "what Americans … thought". But sure, 1,000 is enough, and given that the professional pollsters have prepared methods for selecting good random samples from "America", or any smaller geographic area, I have no reason to doubt the sample is sufficient to get a good answer — as long as they ask good questions.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm finding it really incredible that so many people who don't like the results are having a knee-jerk reaction that the polling methodology is flawed and/or that the pollsters tailored the results to fit someone's agenda.

I didn't have a knee-jerk reaction that the methodology was flawed — I had a knee-jerk reaction that the polling as reported was flawed. It was reported that "3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper", but that is unsupportable just from common sense — it's not possible that 3 out of 4 have even had the opportunity to find which they prefer, and we already know that fewer than 3 out of 4 have a preference because they don't read at all!

So, now, having read a little more, I feel I can safely say that if the methodology isn't flawed, Rasmussen's conclusions certainly are, as they're the ones who claim "Three-out-of-four Americans still prefer a traditional book over an electronic book-reading device and continue to reads books that way" and their questions can't support that conclusion.

[auspex]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Suppose a survey asked: Do you prefer to read mysteries or science fiction? If I don't read science fiction--which I don't--should I be disqualified from answering the question? By choosing not to read science fiction, I've expressed a preference. It's a perfectly valid preference.

But this is exactly the point, and why the methodology does appear flawed. If you don't read SF, but do read mysteries, and claim a preference for mysteries, that's valid. If you don't read either, but claim you prefer mysteries, then you're skewing the results. If the pollsters then include all of the people who say they prefer mysteries, regardless of whether they have ever read anything in either genre, then they are deliberately skewing the results.

In this case, they've asked when you last bought a book, but there's no indication how that was factored into their conclusion.