World Reading Habits During Covid
Have you been reading more in 2020?
Because of coronavirus and the lockdowns, we’re spending more time at home than we’re used to.
For many people, it was the perfect opportunity to dive into some great books.
Global English Editing wanted to find out exactly how the world’s reading habits stacked up in 2020 versus previous years.
Which countries read the most? How did coronavirus change our reading habits? What were we reading in 2020?
They answered these questions in their epic infographic on world reading habits in 2020.
Some of the key highlights of their infographic include:
India, China and Thailand read more than any other country
Printed books remain far more popular than digital or audio books, although the gap narrowed this year (not surprisingly)
Romance is the most popular genre and not just with women.
35% of people reported they read more books this year because of coronavirus
To learn more fun facts about world reading habits in 2020, check out the infographic below.
Hmm… It seems like I’ve been so busy replying to posts, I haven’t answered the original question!
Have I been reading more in 2020? If my private book record is any indication, I would say “a little bit more.” I’ve actually used a lot of 2020 to catch up on projects I had been procrastinating on for years. Seriously, I threw out piles of papers and receipts that had piled up for 10+ years, no joke. Still working on filing and weeding out business cards from conferences ages ago. Throwing out the ones that have gone out of business has been eye-opening. And I look at a number of cards and think, “What the heck was I thinking picking up XYZ company’s card? I don’t even buy that stuff! Into the recycling bin it goes.” Or “I don’t even remember where I picked up that.”
I’ve also been checking out movies I’ve always wanted to watch but never seemed to have the time. I can’t believe it took me so long to watch The Princess Bride! What a delight for all ages!
As for books, I’ve had a lot of DNS (did not start) and at least one DNF. My recent romance reading- even from trusted romance brands- has been a bit lackluster, to say the least. Two books I had really been looking forward to, The Vicar and the Rake and A Shopkeeper for the Earl of Westram, turned out to be really disappointing for me.
I am so glad to see that people all over the world are turning to books to help them through this challenging year. I hope that the increased reading continues. I’d love to see the book industry, especially authors and small bookstores, reap the benefits. Personally, I’ve read more romance this year than I have in my entire life. I am very grateful for this site and how it promotes the love of romance novels and meaningful and very civil discourse. AAR has helped me find great books and given me some interesting things to think about. At this time of Thanksgiving in the US, I want to say a heartfelt thank you!
Does the data consider the fact that India, for example, has a literacy rate of just 77% overall? Because if close to a quarter of Indians are by definition reading zero hours, I think it’s hardly possible for the country to average 10. I suspect these numbers just include literate people. That would mean that the poorest people, who typically have the least leisure time, would be counted in some countries (USA, with literacy rates of 99%) but not in others (Egypt, rate 71%). That would skew reading hours lower in countries with higher literacy rates.
That’s a good point about literacy rates, but we also have to be careful about official statistics. The CIA World Factbook may say that the USA has a literacy rate of 99%, but I’ve been told that’s based on school enrollment figures rather than actual literacy tests. It unfortunately is not that high as something like 60% of American prisoners are functionally illiterate (this is according to a special education teacher I know of who also taught adults in prison). According to the Chicago Literacy Alliance, 30% of adults in Chicago “have low basic literacy skills.” If the National Center for Educational Statistics is to be believed, actual literacy rates in the US as of July 2019 are closer to 79% (Adult Literacy in the United States). Pretty abysmal.
I worked in the drug and alcohol recovery field for many years. A lot of the entry level employees are recovering addicts themselves and a,large percentage of them couldn’t read. I was pretty surprised by that, how is it possible to not be able to read in modern America? But its very possible and sad, too.
“how is it possible to not be able to read in modern America? But its very possible and sad, too.”
I agree it’s extremely sad. And not to start another fight on AAR (I seem to have a knack for it), a lot of it has to do with the often broken public school systems around the country. It’s not uncommon for certain schools to shove students along through graduation, whether they know the material or not. The economist Dr. Walter Williams is pretty brutal in his assessment, going as far as to say that administrators of schools handing out “fraudulent diplomas” that attest students can read, write, and do math at a 12th grade level when they come out of the system barely literate and numerate ought to be held legally accountable for committing an act of fraud by conferring phony baloney diplomas.
My heart goes out to teachers who really want to make a difference but have their hands tied by higher ups. If you read any articles by the retired special education teacher Linda Schrock Taylor, who had more than 40 years of experience with students of all ages- including adults in prison-, she shares more horror stories of bureaucracy, incompetence, and a series of unproven education fads pushed by salesmen that keep teachers from effectively doing their jobs and ensuring kids get the skills they need to succeed as adults. It’s really quite depressing.
What bothers me also is the hostility in much of academia toward homeschoolers, acting like all the kids who come out of it lived in some backwoods cult, can’t count much past ten, and think the earth is only 6,000 years old. No, sorry. Our prisons are filled with largely the products of failed kids from broken public school systems, not homeschoolers. Blaming homeschoolers for a sadly and inexcusably ignorant nation is an embarrassing scapegoat, especially when a number of studies show homeschoolers overall do quite well on standardized testing and are frequently admitted to college.
Bringing this topic back to reading, I have a hold at my library on Charter Schools and their Enemies by economics professor Dr. Thomas Sowell. He swore he was retired, but picked up the pen again at nearly 90 years of age because he is so disheartened by the state of education today. It has about a dozen holds, so I’m in for a long wait. Maybe it’s just as well. It sounds downright depressing…
In the case of my co-workers, most of them started drug use very young, often as a pre-teen. They grew up in environments where chemical abuse was systemic; caregivers often gave them their first hit in fact. And especially for girls there was usually sexual abuse, too. No one cared if the kids went to school, and most dropped out ASAP. Frankly, with those histories its amazing that they ever got sober and were able to hold down a job.
I had a terrible, seriously dysfunctional childhood, but if I’d been found drinking Dad’s Jim Beam I would have had some major consequences! And schooling was important, we didn’t have to get A’s but we had to at least be average. Plus we were all readers, except my brother. The best way to ensure your kids grow up to be readers is to be a reader yourself; model the behavior you want to engender!
And I was very, very lucky to have grown up in one of the best public school systems in the country at the time.
Sorry I didn’t find your comment earlier.
“They grew up in environments where chemical abuse was systemic; caregivers often gave them their first hit in fact. And especially for girls there was usually sexual abuse, too.”
That is just sick. I remember once reading an article from a cop who said something like, “It may be politically incorrect to say so, but there is a social class called ‘scum.'” I would definitely put those abusers in that category.
“No one cared if the kids went to school, and most dropped out ASAP.”
I wonder how early a lot of these kids dropped out though. I say this because sometimes people like to blame the low literacy rates in this country on dropouts when the dropouts in question are in their teens. Sorry, but how bad were the schools that they couldn’t read at a basic level in the grade school years? Now and then, I look over the abysmal public school reading scores in my neck of the woods and am horrified by the poor results. I’m talking as low as single digits for third and fifth graders passing reading benchmarks. Even on the not so extreme end, I’m saddened to see supposedly “decent” schools where only about half to two thirds of students are meeting or exceeding benchmarks. As far as I’m concerned, if your school doesn’t have a basic literacy rate of 95+% by the fifth grade level, there’s a serious systemic problem that needs to be addressed urgently- and not by throwing yet another useless bond measure at the problem. Every year my taxes go up and the problem stays the same or gets worse, so it’s not a money problem. It’s a bureaucracy problem. I feel really bad for all the good teachers who have their hands tied, preventing them from doing their jobs effectively, and the kids who have to suffer the consequences for it.
“And I was very, very lucky to have grown up in one of the best public school systems in the country at the time.”
I’m so glad for you. It’s a shame all kids don’t have the same opportunities.
I’m reading less this year but not a lot less. The past few years I had gotten 120-ish books read and this year is will probably end up around 85. A great deal of my reading time was spend on web comics this year. For a few months I couldn’t concentrate on the book format and the short episodes were easier. Now I’m just hooked. I did start and quit many more books than normal. I just don’t have the patience to wait for them to get better right now.
This is interesting but where is Canada? And South America? Neither of us are a part of the US.
It is nice to see that everyone is reading more
Still reading a respectable amount, but definitely reading less and taking longer to read. I used to be able to listen to audiobooks during my commute, but since I’m working from home, I’m now only listening when I exercise, walk or do housework. Since my husband is also working from home when he isn’t traveling and my daughter is doing school from home I have a lot more interruptions and I’m much more distracted when reading ebooks or print. I am probably averaging around 8 to 12 books and audios together per month when I used to average 15 to 20.
This has been much more like my experience. I’ve read as much as before but it is interrupted reading and my audio listening has had to make up for a deficit in being able to sit down with a book and just read.
I’ve also read differently. I’m far more impatient with slow starts and I struggle to concentrate sometimes. Being distracted by everything going on plus having all the family home has made reading more of a challenge.
This is interesting to me. I am a healthcare worker so I have gone in to work my usual hours M-F since the pandemic began. I read after dinner and on weekends and don’t have a lot of distractions during those times. I can well imagine that others who have been working from home have encountered your same experience and wonder if this holds true in general since the pandemic – people working from home reading less than usual and people doing their usual work reading more?
I find that I am reading a lot less. Working from home has eliminated my audio reads, keeping teenagers occupied and having fun has meant a ton more movie and game nights and then the additional stress going on this year has definitely seen a drop in my reading. I use to read 6 to 9 books a month, now I am down to about 3.
I am working from home and reading more :-)
But then, I live alone and so all my activities/distractions outside the home dropping away means more time to read.
But the whole stress of the pandemic means I read shorter books, more comfort re-reads, simpler stuff and feel-good books.
Like Maggie Boyd, I struggle to concentrate and am impatient with some types of books.
I’ve read more this year than the past 5 or 6 years because my work closed in March. Since going back to work full time 5 years ago, my reading had dropped off a lot. My reading this year is more on par with my reading before I went back to work.
I might have read about 30 more books this year than last year, mostly during a period of reduced work hours. Note that the American reading figures gave a mean of 12 and a median of 4 books per year. Median is the halfway point in a population, meaning half are above that value and half below. Mean can be pulled up by high values. To see this, you can make a spreadsheet with values of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8. A Median function will give a value of 4, and so will an Average (Mean) function. Copy the 9 values to get a total of 99 rows, and median and mean are still both 4. Now change JUST THREE of the highest values from 8 to 300 (roughly how many books I read last year). The Median is unchanged at 4, and the Mean is well over 12. (Two 300s and a 216 brings the Mean of 99 values to exactly 12.) So a Median of 4 and a Mean of 12 tells us that the majority of the U. S. population reads well under 12, and a small number of romance or other readers of many books pull up the average.
You might as well have written those instructions in Greek! I didn’t understand that in college and I don’t understand it now. It’s good there are people who do however.
That’s an excellent point Mark and shows how averages can be misleading. I appreciate your breakdown of the numbers.
Well done! I know the definition of median, so although I didn’t do the math, I knew the relatively few who read a couple of hundred books a year are what’s bringing the mean up to 12. I’m betting a lot of those are romance readers, with cozy mystery and suspense readers helping out.
Thanks Mark, I knew that (I think) but I never realized how few large numbers it needs to bring up the mean. Good to know, also for other number quoting situations!
It needed so few numbers to bring up the mean because the median is so pitifully low. A median of 4 tells us that HALF of the measured population read 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 books in a year! I used my own number of 300 because it does fairly dramatically make the point, but I’m sure the actual above-median portion of the population has counts all over, from 5 up. Given that, the percentage of the population reading 300 books a year will actually be even smaller than the 2-3% of my example.
The school system where I work closed in mid-March and didn’t reopen until late August. I rarely left the house during that time, so other than cooking and baking (Martha Stewart’s basic yeast bread recipe for the win), about the only thing I did for almost six months was read. I read 148 books during quarantine and almost all of them were romances. My tastes didn’t change though—there were still any number of dark/mafia/mob/crime romances, although I also got my regular fixes of all my more mainstream favorites: Caitlin Crews, Jackie Ashenden, Zoe York, Kelly Hunter, Julie Kriss, Molly O’Keefe, Kati Wilde, Melanie Harlow, Serena Bell, Ruth Cardello, Kate Canterbary, etc. All I can say is, thank God for Kindle Unlimited or I’d be completely broke!
I read about the same amount that I always have, which is at least a book a day. I read across most genres, that’s not changed either. What has changed is that I’m not willing to read much that is ‘dark’, I find it too depressing. I never liked mafia stories or BDSM or the controlling partner trope, but now I *need* lighter fare most of the time. I’m re-reading a lot more than normal, and at bedtime I listen to books that I have heard several times. I find sleeping in a quiet room doesn’t work for me right now, so I put on a familiar audio book and sleep very peacefully. I may wear out my copy of Brooklynaire at the rate I re-listen!
I don’t understand non-readers, or those who only read a little and I never have. But I’m an introvert who hates being outdoors, and there are those mystifying extroverts who must run or garden or party like rock stars. They need to be moving and I need to be reading!
The non-readers whom I really don’t understand are the ones who say things like, “I hate reading, and I’ve only ever read two books in my life, but I want to be a writer!”
“The non-readers whom I really don’t understand are the ones who say things like, ‘I hate reading, and I’ve only ever read two books in my life, but I want to be a writer!'”
I’m actually a lot more sympathetic to this statement than most, maybe because I’m one of those authors who likes reading but loves writing. Actually, the processes are quite different. I always got a kick out of Quentin Crisp’s response to the question, “What advice do you have for aspiring writers?” He replied, “Never read!” Then he went on to clarify that if you read too much, then you start trying to copy other writers’ styles instead of just saying what you’re trying to say.
Obviously, he was being a bit tongue in cheek (he was answering questions live for an audience like an improv show), but I can see his point in a way. And I’d add that there are lots of people who love reading but can’t stand the thought of writing something original. So why can’t it be the other way around? And when you see some of the stuff that does get published by self-described “lifelong readers,” I don’t see how they could do much worse… ;-)
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King
Obviously, a writer needs to know how to read- no question about that. And I think studying grammar and syntax through sources like The Elements of Style go a long way in improving understanding and implementation of the English language. But writing itself improves by actually doing it. You can read day and night, but if you don’t put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), your writing will never improve.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m very much in favor of reading. But I don’t consider reading fiction obsessively to be a requirement for producing readable writing. I happen to think nonfiction writing manuals and lots of practice do a better job than the idea of learning through fiction reading via osmosis.
True, it’s definitely helpful to read in the genre you want to produce in order to obtain an idea of what readers expect. That’s how I learned that traditional romance was not something I could successfully write, even though I learned to like reading the genre. But if you have a story idea in mind, I say, quit procrastinating and just write it. Of course, if you actually want to make serious money, you better read and take notes of the “beats” in your genre. At this point, I’m definitely not the go-to person for advice on making bank in the field…
This was a really interesting set of stats so thanks, Dabney, for posting it. Given the popularity of reading all round the world and the very significant percentage of this devoted to reading romance, it would be fascinating to know where those who follow or contribute comments to AAR are based and in what language they read it.
I live in Central Europe, roughly in the triangle between Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
The books we discuss here I read in English.
I try to read in the original language if I know it.
I have definitely been reading more books since the pandemic started. In my state (California), shelter-in-place began in mid-March. A lot of TV shows I watched ended their seasons in April or May and there was not much that interested me after that so I cut back TV watching time. I wasn’t going to the movies or outings with friends or family on weekends so instead I read. It used to be that I would read 1-2 books per week (usually on the weekend). Over the past 6 months, however, I have been reading up to 7 books per week. For me, that’s a lot because I work about 45 hours/week. That statistic about Americans on average reading 12 books PER YEAR just flabbergasts me! Almost all of my reading since the pandemic started has been romance, as was the majority pre-pandemic, and I would estimate about 80% e-book. I’ve been most drawn to Contemporary Romance and discovered many new-to-me authors such as Devney Perry, Claire Kingsley, Roxie Noir, Mimi Matthews, and Kayley Loring. I also started reading M/M romance after the pandemic began, discovering great authors such as Lily Morton, Sally Malcolm, Jay Hogan, Rachel Reid, Keira Andrews and Briar Prescott. Honestly, reading more has been the best result of the pandemic!
I just realized that I lumped Mimi Mathews in with a bunch of contemporary romance authors when she is historical romance – that will teach me not to post late at night!
“That statistic about Americans on average reading 12 books PER YEAR just flabbergasts me!”
Really? I would have thought it would be lower considering a lot of Americans don’t read anything if they can help it. I don’t mean this as an insult, but I don’t think America is largely a reading culture. It tends to be more visual and pop culture oriented- movies, TV series, and the like.
“Over the past 6 months, however, I have been reading up to 7 books per week.”
Holy moly! I get proud of myself if I reach 40 books per year, if that.
I am still an obsessive reader, I watch very little TV these days apart from some news and choose a book over any other entertainment.
Since I have been working from home I find I work significantly more hours and I believe that has cut into my reading time as I can be on the computer doing work well into the night.
I have been drawn to less dramatic books and have sought out those that are either funnier or more fantastic in nature this year as an antidote to the news cycle.