Japan Survey: More Than 60％ Do Not Read Any Books In a Month; Almost 70％ Read Fewer Books Than Before

The Yomiuri Shimbun

17:50 JST, September 17, 2024

More than 60% of people surveyed by the Cultural Affairs Agency said they do not read any books in a month, the agency announced Tuesday.

The fiscal 2023 survey on reading and the Japanese language also found that a record 69.1% of respondents read fewer books than they used to. The agency believes that an increase in smartphone and social media usage may be a factor behind the shift away from reading.

The survey was conducted by mail from January to March and surveyed 6,000 people aged 16 or older. A total of 3,559 people, or 59.3%, responded. Questions about reading habits have been included in the survey every five years, beginning with the fiscal 2008 poll.

Excluding manga and magazines, respondents were asked how many books in paper or electrical form they read per month, to which 62.6% said they do not read any books. The figure increased by 15.3 percentage points from the previous fiscal 2018 survey, which was conducted in person.

Although a simple comparison cannot be made due to differences in the surveys’ methodologies, this year’s result is the highest since the survey started.

For the first time, people who do not read books were asked how often they read other types of texts, such as social media posts and internet articles, and 75.3% responded “almost daily.”

Of the respondents, 36.9% said they do read at least one books a month, which was 15.7 percentage points lower than the previous survey. The proportion of respondents who read 1 to 2 books a month was 27.6%, while 6.0% read 3 to 4 books, and 3.3% read 5 books or more.

Asked to say why they read fewer books, with multiple answers allowed, the most popular reason at 43.6% was because they spend their time on devices such as smartphones and tablets. That percentage has tripled since fiscal 2008.

“A lot of text on the internet and social media tends to be short and easy to read. But reading the substantial amounts of text found in books is very important for developing the ability to think logically,” an agency official said.