Something Extra: Books And Books
MIAMI (CBS4) - Do you read books? A new Pew Research Center poll says a lot fewer of you do than ever before.
They surveyed people aged 16 and older and found more than fifty million Americans, nineteen per cent, hadn't read a book of any kind in the last year.
The younger you were, the more likely you were to have a read one, probably because of school. But older Americans who read books are far more avid readers than younger ones.
The number of really avid readers, those who read fifty books or more a year, has plunged from thirteen per cent in the late seventies to only five per now (I'm married to one and the father of another... I'm going broke on books).
The survey also found the number of Americans who own e-readers has more than tripled in two years. Nineteen percent of us own one now.
The good news is that even though fewer of us read, the average American is reading more and in more formats: regular books, e-books and audio books, an average of seventeen books a year.
Believe it or not, thanks to modern technology we have more leisure time than we did in the past. But there are so many distractions, we aren't spending enough time on good old books.
