“According to a survey of USESCO, a Chinese people reads 4 books per year, an American reads 40 and a Jewish reads 64.” Countless Chinese readers have seen this sentence many times online or even on printed publications and believe that China has the worst reading status quo in the world. But actually, USESCO did not publish the data and the sentence is totally a rumor.
Recently, a data from Global GFK Survey shows that China is the country with the highest reading frequency. GFK interviewed more than 22000 consumers from 17 countries in 2016 and investigated their reading frequency.
Global GFK survey: Frequency of reading books
The table shows that China has the largest percentage of “everyday or most days” readers and United Kingdom ranked second. Generally speaking, the readers of the developed countries read more than those from the developing countries, but Asian area is exception.
South Korea and Japan are the economically developed countries in Asia and China is the largest developing country in the world. 11% of Japanese and 16% south Korean never read books and the percentage is higher than China, which is only 2%.
In China, 15-19-year-old group read more than any other age group.
Global GFK survey: Frequency of reading books
In the top seven countries which has the most 15-19-year-old “everyday or most days readers”, only two countries, Canada and Australia, are developed countries. 49% of 15-19-year-old in China read everyday or most days. Teenagers in developing countries read more than those in developed countries.
Global GFK survey: Frequency of reading books
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Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released the national reading report of 2016 in April. The report shows that a Chinese read 7.77 books at average per year. According to the data from Pew Research Center, the mean Americans read 12 books in 2016 and the number is higher than China.
Chinese Academy of Press and Publication: National reading report from 2011-2016
Pew Research Center: Book Reading 2016
36% of Chinese almost read everyday and only 2% never read books but why the Chinese average of books is lower than USA?
47.4% of Chinese read online, 17% listen audio books and 52.6% tend to read print books. In USA, 65% of American read a print book, 28% read online and 14% listen audio books. The figure shows that compared with Chinese, American prefer reading a print book and Chinese prefer online reading.
Chinese Academy of Press and Publication: National reading report from 2011-2016
Pew Research Center: Book Reading 2016
With the development of smart phones, reading is becoming more increasingly fragmented. Mobile Internet makes reading more convenient but also makes paper reading being slighted. People tend to read fast on the digital device and it’s hard to calm down to read a book online. Paper reading helps people more involved in reading and keeps the brains working.
“The survey of USESCO” is just a lie but the situation of paper reading is not positive in China. Pick a print book up and try to enjoy paper reading. Online reading is faster and more available but it should not replace paper reading.
