23 April 2022 is the 27th World Book Day. In the complicated life, reading gives people a rest to the body and mind, and gives the spirit to nourish. Factors such as the development of reading activities for the whole people, the prosperity of cultural industries and the arrival of the knowledge economy have jointly built an important position of reading in the minds of the Chinese people.
What has been the reading habits and habits of the general public over the past year? What kind of books are the most popular? Under the strong competition of book e-commerce, what kind of physical bookstores will be welcomed? ...... Around these problems, the Program Research and Development and User Research Center of Jiangsu Radio and Television General Station conducted a topic survey to interpret topics such as reading habits, preferences and reading environment of the whole people with data.
*Note: This survey uses an online rapid sample survey, and a total of 2183 respondents from all provinces across the country participated in the survey. The age covers the pre-70s, post-70s, post-80s, post-90s and post-00s generations.
The average person read 6.8 books
64.7% read no more than 1 hour a day
According to rough statistics, in 2021, the average number of readers surveyed was 6.8 books. Among them, 27.1% of the surveyed readers read 5-10 books, and 20.1% read more than 10 books. With the increase of age, the number of reading showed a downward trend, the average reading of the post-00s reached 8.2 books, the post-90s 7.3 books, and the post-80s 6.5 books, while the per capita reading volume of the post-70s and older groups was only 5.8 books and 5.1 books, respectively.
Looking at specific provinces and cities, according to the latest data from the Jiangsu Provincial Reading Office and the Provincial Social Intelligence Poll Center on April 21, last year, adult residents in Jiangsu read 10.24 e-books per capita, and the average person spent 77.79 minutes per day to read, and the comprehensive reading rate of adult residents in the province was 90.23%, an increase of 0.04 percentage points over the previous year.
In the survey, 64.7% of the respondents read for no more than 1 hour a day, accounting for mostly 30 minutes to 1 hour. When "stealing half a day of leisure" in the busyness, reading ranked 4th in the leisure mode with a 33.5% acceptance rate, and many respondents still tended to "kill time" in a more relaxed and brain-saving way such as chasing dramas, watching live broadcasts, and visiting social platforms.
From the perspective of intergenerational division, people over 40 years old spend less time reading every day, and only more than 20% can achieve more than 1 hour of reading per day, and the proportion of post-90s and post-00s is relatively higher.
Reading pays attention to the accumulation of precipitation, moisturizing silent, and the effect will not be immediate. When it comes to the purpose of reading, "hobbies" and "growth" are chosen by most readers, who draw nourishment from reading and enhance their heritage. But for readers who have not read for more than half a year and have no long-term habits, reading books is mainly a temporary pastime.
Online novels are the most popular
43.1% of readers are "planted" by film and television works to "plant grass" good books
When asked about the type of book they like to read the most, 43.4% of the readers surveyed chose online novels. According to the "2020-2021 China Digital Publishing Industry Annual Report", in 2020, about 2 million new signed works of online literature will be signed throughout the year, and the average daily update word count of national literary websites will exceed 150 million, and online literature has become one of the most popular literary genres for readers.
In addition to online novels, books such as knowledge popularization (27.8%), history (27.7%) and popular literature (26.5%) are also favored, even to the extent that one in four people love to read. The most popular among men are books on history and natural sciences, while women prefer popular literature and popular knowledge books.
People's preference for book types reflects a clear age difference. For example, the post-70s like popular literature and history books, the post-90s prefer knowledge popularization books, with a reading ratio of nearly 30%, and the post-00s have the highest enthusiasm for comics and picture books. In addition, according to the "2020 China Book Market Research Report", the user preference of medical and health books has increased significantly, and in 2020, the sales of preventive medicine/hygiene books are 5 times that of 2019.
In what ways do people find the books they want to read? In the survey, more than 40% of the readers interviewed will have the impulse to read because of the mention of a book in film and television literary and artistic works, and they will be "planted" in a subtle way. In addition, 37.9% of the surveyed readers will take the initiative to find books with the goal of improving their knowledge structure, and 33.2% of the surveyed readers will "punch in" because the authors they follow have published new books. In contrast, the proportion of readers who "plant grass" because of blogger recommendation books and list recommendations is relatively low.
Busy work + impetuousness affect reading
Ninety percent of readers use fragmented time to read books
However, in this era full of information temptation, colorful entertainment methods continue to stimulate people's nerves seeking audiovisual pleasure, and it is not easy to insist on reading.
More than 20% of the respondents admitted that they had not read books for more than half a year, or almost did not read books, while 32.1% insisted on reading. Among the latter, 43.5% of them have postgraduate degrees or above, and 38% of them are students and graduates of literature, history and philosophy.
We all know that reading is beneficial, and what makes reading "not fragrant"? The survey shows that busy work (42.7%) and calm (40.4%) are the two main reasons, and the inability to squeeze time (28.0%), the atmosphere of no reading around (22.8%), the lack of books that interest you (21.5%), and the lack of reading habits (20.3%) also affect people's reading status.
At a time when life is fast-paced and fragmented, 90% of the readers surveyed will use fragmented time to read, and 76% have their own preferred fragmented reading scenes. Among them, 60% regard the night before going to bed as the golden reading time, 30% choose the lunch break time, and office workers are also better at using the opportunity of commuting to ride, waiting for the bus to read in fragments. Only 10% of the readers surveyed will not read fragmented, and the main way for this part of the readers is to read paper books.
The sense of atmosphere brought about by the family environment also has an impact on reading habits. The survey found that 30.5% of the respondents had a special study at home, and the average reading volume of such respondents in 2021 reached 8.33 books, which was significantly higher than the 6.11 books without a study. The number of books in the study room showed a gradual increase with the growth of the study area and academic qualifications, and the per capita storage of the respondents in the study room of 21 square meters and above reached 427.5 books, and the number of books stored by the people with postgraduate degree or above reached 210.9 books.
Online shopping is the main channel for buying books
But there is no substitute for the physical bookstore experience
According to the "2020 China Book Market Research Report", in 2020, the per capita book purchase expenditure increased by 3.3% compared with 2018, and the proportion of users who bought books with a book purchase amount of more than 500 yuan increased by 6.1% compared with 2019.
On the one hand, people's willingness to pay for knowledge has increased year by year; on the other hand, physical bookstores are still facing the dilemma of survival. According to the 2020-2021 China Physical Bookstore Industry Report, in 2020, about 4061 new physical bookstores will be available in China, but 1573 bookstores will also close.
As a traditional book purchase channel, the physical bookstore maintains a difficult balance between book e-commerce and digital publishing. According to the survey, more than half of the respondents basically do not go to or occasionally visit physical bookstores, and online shopping for paper books is the channel through which 50.7% of the surveyed readers obtain books. Physical bookstores were the next, accounting for 41.5%. Free and paid e-reading also has an impact and diversion on offline physical bookstores, with 39.6% of the surveyed readers obtaining e-books from free, open source channels, and 29.8% mainly paying for e-books.
Currently, online reading has become the most common form of reading (53.9%), followed by e-books, which are the choice of 45.5% of respondents, and paper books and audiobooks account for 42.8% and 25.4%, respectively. Half (50.6%) of the readers who chose paper books as the main reading form believe that reading paper books can be more focused and immersive, 40% of the readers surveyed believe that paper books have a more ritualistic reading sense (42.4%), and 38.2% of readers think that paper books are convenient to annotate.
How can brick-and-mortar bookstores transform? Among them, the two ways to create a comfortable and quiet reading self-study type and a bookstore and coffee casual bookstore that integrates catering can be most affirmed by the respondents. In addition, nearly 30% of the respondents favor bookstores to hold more cultural lectures and meet and share meetings, and create a space for parent-child companionship and interaction. Compared with this, the internet celebrity landmark type and art space type bookstore that can often be brushed on social platforms are not actually highly recognized. It can be seen that practical functions such as reading books and sharing knowledge are the keys to retaining customers in physical bookstores.
The existence of physical bookstores seems to prove that physical books and public reading spaces still have irreplaceable qualities in the information age. If you have time to spare your busy life, you may wish to put down your mobile phone for a short time and build a spiritual place in the book to find an antidote to soothe your emotions.
Attached: Jiangsu Provincial Leading Group for National Reading Activities
12 good books recommended to the community
【References】
The latest release of the Annual Report of China's Digital Publishing Industry. China Publishing & Media Business Daily. 2021-10-27.
2020 China Book Market Research Report. 2021-04-19.
2020-2021 China Physical Bookstore Industry Report. 2021-03-31.
Editor / Wang Yuqi
Text / Xiaoxuan Wang (Intern)
Drafting / Lin Ling (Internship)