Poll: 3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper books

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Because the headline reads "3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper books". If 25% of Americans don't read anything, that kind of means the headline is worthless. When you add another 18% who read 20 or less books in one year, suddenly we're nearly 50% of those who read little or nothing. I'm not surprised that those that read only a couple books a year have no interest in ebooks. That *could* mean that those who read more than 20 books/year do prefer ebooks and the Pew Research results I pointed to upstream seem agree with that.

It seems natural that people who read very little would prefer paper books to ebooks. Paper books are far superior to ebooks when you need to start a fire, level uneven furniture and when the TP runs out...

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by Catlady

... But that doesn't mean it was invalid in the survey being discussed to presumably include people who don't use an e-reader and have decided not to buy one, for whatever reason.

As far as I am concerned and from what I've read about the survey, the survey and therefore its results are invalid.
But, I don't live in the US of A, so I really can't say I am threatened

[BearMountainBooks]

I buy whatever is cheaper generally. I prefer the instant download, but if a paperback is cheaper or the same price, I'll usually go with the paperback. I can resell it or give it away easier. Now in some cases, there are books with a good "lend" value. That is to say if the book is lendable (once) and I know one of my reading buddies is also looking to read it, that ups the value of that book. But I suspect that a poll won't show my complicated buying requirements...

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Because there isn't enough factual information to legitimately question the poll--no one's reported going past the paywall for the complete results and methodology.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's fine. I have no problem with that. Just don't take the knee-kerk stance that doubting the validity of the poll automatically translates to being "threatened by the results."

I don't feel "threatened," because I don't think these numbers really mean anything anyway.

As for questioning the poll, I will admit that I immediately had questions; not because of the results, but because of the source. I've read a number of articles over the last few years which have discussed how poll questions can be tailored towards a desired result, most of which have referenced Rasmussen as an example of a polling group which uses these tactics. As a result, I don't have a lot of faith in the validity of any of their polls.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

According to Pew Research, about 25% of Americans read no books at all. About 18% read less than 20 books a year. That means that about 43% of Americans read little or none.

Am I the only one who thinks those figures indicate a *higher* proportion of readers than might be expected?

Unless I'm misinterpreting, that means that more than 50% of Americans read at least 20 books a year (i.e. averaging a book every 2.5 weeks or so). That may not seem much to members of a forum such as this, but for non-fanatical readers with busy lives, a book every 2 or 3 weeks seems like pretty good going.

/JB

[QuantumIguana]

I remember 25 years ago, I was having my stuff packed up because I was getting stationed in Korea for a year. I had a small bookshelf, perhaps 4 feet tall and a couple feet wide, and it wasn't quite full. They guy who came to pack up my stuff talked about how "many" books I had, and said that he read only one book in his whole life. There just wasn't much that I could say about that, so I just let it go and let him get on with his work.

For some people, it appears normal to read no books at all. I've been in people's houses where there wasn't a book to be seen. For others, reading constantly rapidly appears to be normal. 57% of Americans reading 20 or more books a year is a pretty significant number. I wouldn't call reading 19 books a year reading only a few.

I think the belief that in the past, people used to read and read and read is based in judging the population as a whole on what your personal experience was. It's true, in the past they didn't have TV and video games, but there were plenty of other activities besides reading. There was playing outside, for example.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I remember 25 years ago, I was having my stuff packed up because I was getting stationed in Korea for a year. I had a small bookshelf, perhaps 4 feet tall and a couple feet wide, and it wasn't quite full. They guy who came to pack up my stuff talked about how "many" books I had, and said that he read only one book in his whole life. There just wasn't much that I could say about that, so I just let it go and let him get on with his work.

For some people, it appears normal to read no books at all. I've been in people's houses where there wasn't a book to be seen. For others, reading constantly rapidly appears to be normal. 57% of Americans reading 20 or more books a year is a pretty significant number. I wouldn't call reading 19 books a year reading only a few.

I think the belief that in the past, people used to read and read and read is based in judging the population as a whole on what your personal experience was. It's true, in the past they didn't have TV and video games, but there were plenty of other activities besides reading. There was playing outside, for example.

I've lived for about 15 years mostly in the Canadian Northern Territories, and worked with and around miers and loggers for about 30 years. The percentage of people who read a fair amount seems higher with those who lived or worked in northern regions for more than 30 years, especially among those who lived or worked in remote locations.

Most camps had no TV's and laptops were uncommon and expensive. Electricity was not available at all sites and was sporadic in many. Plus it was a bit cold outside to go out and play after a 12 hour shift pulling 50 lb diamond drilling cores out of the ground or hand piling trees. Several older loggers and miners have told me they learned to read because it was that or play cards, and a guy who could tell stories or would read aloud, rarely had to smoke his own smokes at camp or buy his own beer when he was in town.

Of course this only my personal experience with actual people who had no TVs or video games, and yes I have been in some of those camps.


Helen

[QuantumIguana]

I'm not saying that people didn't read in the past, just that reading was never as popular as nostalgia would have it. People complain that video games have made people stop reading, but they forget that there were plenty of other things that people did. Kids used to play a lot more outdoor sports, for example, it wasn't true that they had nothing to do but read.

[Cheerful Hamster]

First post for me. Personally I prefer paper books, but after 30 years of collecting them I'm out of storage room so eBooks to the rescue. I wouldn't miss the dead trees so much if the formatting on eBooks was better. Over the past six months I've taught myself to use Sigil and I'm amazed that any eBooks look halfway decent considering the poor support for even the most basic HTML in e-readers and formats. No knock against Sigil though, the limitations are inherent in the ePub format.

Here is a poll taken on the Tech Report site that is somewhat relevant to the thread. Since it's a tech site these are tech-savvy respondents who are likely to be familiar with e-readers.

How do you prefer to read books?

On a dedicated e-reader 16%
On a smartphone 3%
On a tablet 12%
On a laptop/desktop 3%
On paper 53%
Via audiobooks 3%
I'm not much of a reader 8%
Other/mystifying 1%

Total votes: 8434

[crich70]

Originally Posted by K. Molen

Do you really believe that?

Personally, I have zero doubt the paper book is dying, but I think it's dying extremely slowly. First to go will be fiction, then the non-fiction equivalent of a novel (i.e. non-fiction intended to be read cover-to-cover... is there a word for that?)

Yep, I think they are called technical manuals.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Cheerful Hamster

First post for me. Personally I prefer paper books, but after 30 years of collecting them I'm out of storage room so eBooks to the rescue. I wouldn't miss the dead trees so much if the formatting on eBooks was better. Over the past six months I've taught myself to use Sigil and I'm amazed that any eBooks look halfway decent considering the poor support for even the most basic HTML in e-readers and formats. No knock against Sigil though, the limitations are inherent in the ePub format.

Here is a poll taken on the Tech Report site that is somewhat relevant to the thread. Since it's a tech site these are tech-savvy respondents who are likely to be familiar with e-readers.

How do you prefer to read books?

On a dedicated e-reader 16%
On a smartphone 3%
On a tablet 12%
On a laptop/desktop 3%
On paper 53%
Via audiobooks 3%
I'm not much of a reader 8%
Other/mystifying 1%

Total votes: 8434

Ah, but you have to keep in mind that paper books have been around for 563 yrs(as far as mass printing) and ebooks have been round for only about 42-43 years. So ebooks have only been around for 7.637% of the time that mass printed paper books have been. i.e. 43 *100/ 563= 7.637 Naturally there are still some bugs to work out, how could there not be?

[K. Molen]

Originally Posted by crich70

Yep, I think they are called technical manuals.

I was thinking things like memoirs and biographies and other novel-length explorations of a particular topic. I'm not so sure "technical manual" would be apt to describe something like Finding Atlantis, which I just finished and which I can recommend.

Maybe simply non-fiction novel is the best way to describe it...

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by K. Molen

I was thinking things like biographies and other novel-length explorations of a particular topic. I'm not so sure "technical manual" would be apt to describe something like Finding Atlantis, which I just finished and which I can recommend.

I describe them as "narrative non-fiction," they essentially tell a linear story, but they're not marketed as fiction.

[HansTWN]

The world's largest manufacturer of printing presses (Heidelberger Druckmaschinen) closed down not too long ago (early this year) that should tell us something about where this is heading. Plenty of good arguments can be made in favor of paper -- but that won't stop the tide from rolling in.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by K. Molen

I was thinking things like memoirs and biographies and other novel-length explorations of a particular topic. I'm not so sure "technical manual" would be apt to describe something like Finding Atlantis, which I just finished and which I can recommend.

Maybe simply non-fiction novel is the best way to describe it...

I mis-read part of your post. But a technical manual is non-fiction and often as long as a novel.