Books or e-Books: How Do You Read?

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

I just finished reading a report, released earlier this month from the Pew Research Center, on the rise of e-reading—whether on e-book readers like Kindles and Nooks; tablet devices like iPads; cell phones; or computers. The report details the results of surveys of nearly 3,000 adults ages 16 years and older conducted in December, 2011, and then again in February, 2012, about their reading habits.

Prior to the 2011 holiday season, approximately 17% of adults had read an e-book in the previous year, but in the post-holiday survey early the next year, following holiday gift giving, that number had jumped to 21%. While printed books still dominate (in December, 2011, 72% of Americans reported that they had read a printed book in the past 12 months), e-reading is growing more popular. And it seems that those who read e-books are spending more time reading “since the advent of e-content”: in particular, 41% of tablet owners and 35% of e-reading device owners say they are reading more now.

Format follows function. One question asked in the December 2011 survey was which format was better for a variety of reading situations. E-books scored slightly higher than print books for reading in bed (45% vs 43%), but considerably higher for reading while traveling or commuting (73% vs 19%), availability of broad selection of content (53% vs 35%), and “being able to get […]