ARTICLE:Almost a quarter of Americans (23%) did not crack the spine of a book or flip the digital pages of an e-book last year, according to Pew Research Center. This is the same percentage as last year, and the latest in a continual decline of the reading American. For comparison, only 8% of American's hadn't opened a book in 1978, meaning we've nearly tripled the number of non-book readers. We're also not reading as many books; in 1978, 42% of adults had ready at least 11 books during the year. The number of 11+ readers today is just 28%. So why are we reading less, or not at all? If you said the internet, Candy Crush and a slew of distracting device, you're on the right track. Pew reports that half of us, 50%, have a handheld device like a tablet or eReader, but of those, only 28% are reading books on those devices. While small, that number has actually grown from 23% reading on their devices the year prior.
Perhaps some silver lining; the number of younger people reading for pleasure stopped declining, so apparently some books can still pull us from our gadgets.
SITE: http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2014/PIP_E-reading_011614.pdf
