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2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

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Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#41

Post by alwa »

I'm kind of shocked that 60% of all US adult citizens did report reading a book during the year. That seems much higher than I would have expected.

It is a self-reported measure, and it's phrased "read or listened to"--I don't normally think of "listening to audiobooks" when I think about reading, and I can imagine how that might broaden the pool. Other sources (e.g. the NEA survey at [0]) seem to put print book readership closer to 50%.

Though at least one survey [1] points out the wide range of genres that count as books for this purpose: manga, the Bible/Torah/Quran, cookbooks...

[0] https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-... [1] https://gitnux.org/readership-statistics/

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#42

Post by bitbytebane »

JoblessWonder wrote: post #36

Aren't 1 out of 5 Americans functionally illiterate? [1] There is no way this is correct. [1] https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-liter...

Yes they are very illiterate, especially in math; of which you are an excellent example.

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#45

Post by webdevver »

reading books these days is more akin to visiting the theatre. its a special cultural occasion that you might do once a year to remind yourself that this stuff is still out there, but for actual practical purposes reading books is probably the slowest method of ingesting information today.

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#46

Post by yesfitz »

The survey this is based on[1] counts listening to audiobooks as "reading", which can only inflate the numbers.

I have nothing against audiobooks, but they are not the same as reading. It is a passive consumption of the content. You can daydream or lose focus and the story keeps rolling on. If you lose focus while reading, the story stops. You may find that you've "read" a few sentences, but it's quickly self-correcting.

Additionally, reading forces you to parse tone, interpret context, and resolve syntactic ambiguity on your own. Listening to a narrator removes those tasks.

I think that this door was opened when we started accepting that reading graphic novels was the same as reading a book of text. Rather than elevating new(ish) media for storytelling for their own merit, we've lumped them into another medium that was already deemed "good".

All that said, listening to an audiobook or reading a graphic novel is still better than not reading a book at all.

1: https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/53804-most-a...

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#47

Post by Loughla »

jedberg wrote: post #28

My family is doing our part to keep the average up (despite me being part of the family). I read one book last year, and it wasn't so much a single story as a collection of short non-fiction stories. I've read various chapters of some business books. But most of my reading is shorter form content like on here or articles. But! We take our kids to the library every couple of weeks, and while we do let them check out N…

Read something simple and fun after kids go to bed while you're staring into the abyss before you go to bed.

Science fiction and fantasy work well. The Dungeon Crawler Carl books really help my brain take a break without actively disengaging the actual thinking parts.

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#48

Post by jedberg »

Nashooo wrote: post #40
jedberg wrote: post #28

My family is doing our part to keep the average up (despite me being part of the family). I read one book last year, and it wasn't so much a single story as a collection of short non-fiction stories. I've read various chapters of some business books. But most of my reading is shorter form content like on here or articles. But! We take our kids to the library every couple of weeks, and while we do let them check out N…

I hear audiobooks work well

Unfortunately I can't stand them for fiction. I love podcasts of non-fiction, but I can't keep track of the characters in fiction audiobooks. :(

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#49

Post by jedberg »

Loughla wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #28

My family is doing our part to keep the average up (despite me being part of the family). I read one book last year, and it wasn't so much a single story as a collection of short non-fiction stories. I've read various chapters of some business books. But most of my reading is shorter form content like on here or articles. But! We take our kids to the library every couple of weeks, and while we do let them check out N…

Read something simple and fun after kids go to bed while you're staring into the abyss before you go to bed. Science fiction and fantasy work well. The Dungeon Crawler Carl books really help my brain take a break without actively disengaging the actual thinking parts.

> while you're staring into the abyss before you go to bed

I feel like I'm doing it wrong (or maybe right?), but I don't have that time. I'm asleep a minute after I lay down. In fact it's been an issue because the kids sometimes want me to lay down with them to fall asleep, and then I fall asleep in their bed!

Re: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

#50

Post by VLM »

A lot of effort has gone to comment without reading the stats. I'll read the survey for you all:

https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...

Yes it includes audiobooks in "books".

physical books were around three times more popular than ebooks or audiobooks.

75% did not read anything to children (kind of surprising 25% of the population has access to pre-literate children)

15% don't read books they own, which is surprisingly high. A third borrowed their books from the library.

54% of the population inaccurately think they "own" an ebook as opposed to reality. 40% "a book you accessed for free online" Sure thats all project gutenberg LOL.

Mysteries and Crime are top of the charts. I have no idea if "computer books" count as 11% other non-fiction or academic or hobbies.

Only 51% have a library card. I know they are cracking down hard at my library, show up physically with proof of residence or it gets cancelled. Its harder to get a library card in my community than to vote, get a job, or register for school, your community may vary.

Most people go to the library less than once a month. This sounds about right.

Shockingly 20% of people never go to the library just to hang out. As a parent of older kids I do that a LOT, drop them off then go silently read or compute or whatever at the library. The attempt at turning libraries from book warehouses into makerspaces seems to not be working very well according to this survey.

People own a surprisingly small number of books. A "large full height bookcase" puts you in the elite. I'm kind of surprised at that.

Virtually no one hoards digital or audio books, I am apparently a far extreme outlier in that regard LOL. I'm easily five figures each. From, uh, totally legit sources.

Most people actually own about two dozen books and think most other people own about twice as many around fifty.

Since I was a little kid I always read a little before bedtime and it seems this is very popular.

Most people don't organize their books but think they have an easy time finding them (not unlike how people organize computer files...)

Surprisingly there is zero to very minimal demographic difference in every category among people who do not read, which I find very surprising and unlikely.

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