More than a quarter of US adults say they haven’t read a book — either in whole or in part and whether in print or electronic form — in the past year, according to a new survey.
Twenty-seven percent of adults say they have not read any books in the past 12 months, up from 19 percent in 2011, but identical to the share who said this in 2015, the Pew Research Center said.
The research shows that people who are less likely to read books fall into several categories.
Forty-four percent of adults with a high school diploma or less are far more likely than those with a bachelor’s or advanced degree to report not reading books in any format, according to the findings.
Adults with lower levels of education also are among the least likely to own smartphones, devices that saw a substantial increase in usage for reading e-books from 2011 to 2016.
Those “whose annual household income is $30,000 or less are more likely than those living in households earning $75,000 or more a year to be non-book readers (36% vs. 14%),” the study said.
Meanwhile, 40 percent of Hispanics and 33 percent of African Americans are more likely than whites — 22 percent — to report not having read a book in the past year.
But there are differences between Hispanics born inside and outside the US: 56 percent of foreign-born Hispanics report not having read a book, compared with 27 percent of Hispanics born inside the country.
In a 2016 survey, the center “found that Hispanics, older adults, those living in households earning less than $30,000 and those who have a high school diploma or did not graduate from high school are the most likely to report they have never been to a public library.”
But a 2015 survey found that some of these same demographic groups acknowledged the importance of libraries in their communities and for their families.
African American and Hispanic adults, those in lower-income households and adults age 30 and older were more likely to say that their local libraries serve them and their families “very well.”
Overall, Americans read an average of 12 books a year, while the typical American has read four books in the past 12 months, the study found.
Each of these figures is mostly unchanged since 2011, when the center first began conducting the surveys of Americans’ book-reading habits.
The survey of 1,502 US adults was conducted from Jan. 8 to Feb. 7.