09-03-2016, 08:07 PM | #1 |
doofus
Posts: 2,533
Karma: 13088847
Join Date: Sep 2010
Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Voyage
|
Pew Research Center survey on American reading habits
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/0...to-audio-books
A few highlights - 73% of Americans read at least one book in any format during last year, largely unchanged since 2012 - 65% read at least one print book, 28% ebook, 14% audiobook - 38% read print exclusively, 6% ebook exclusively - E-book readership increased by 11-percentage points between 2011 and 2014 (from 17% to 28%) but has seen no change in the last two years. - from 2011 to 2016 share of reading on tablets increased from 4% to 15%, on phones from 5% to 13%, on dedicated e-readers decreased slightly from 8% to 7%. - |
09-03-2016, 11:20 PM | #2 |
Just a Yellow Smiley.
Posts: 19,161
Karma: 83862859
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Texas
Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy
|
Please note: This was a very small survey. Note: they asked for the youngest adult at home.
It looks like this was done by cold calling numbers. May or may not be accurate. I have included part of page 3 of the report. "The analysis in this report is based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 7-April 4, 2016, among a national sample of 1,520 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Fully 381 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,139 were interviewed on a cellphone, including 636 who had no landline telephone. The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cellphone random-digit-dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who was at home. Interviews in the cellphone sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was 18 years of age or older. " |
Advert | |
|
09-04-2016, 07:01 AM | #3 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,732
Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
|
Of course, by targeting 18 year olds preferentially they tended to interview students (instead of the parents) whose reading tends to be in print.
No, no bias at all. Last edited by fjtorres; 09-04-2016 at 07:04 AM. |
09-04-2016, 07:53 AM | #4 |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,181
Karma: 39854870
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: near Philadelphia USA
Device: Kindle Kids Edition, Fire HD 10 (11th generation)
|
Pew is a respected polling organization which rates better than Gallup:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/ I prefer reading eBooks on eInk. This puts me in the minority that, it now appears, will continue to be a minority for many years. There's nothing wrong with being in a minority. |
09-04-2016, 09:19 AM | #5 |
PHD in Horribleness
Posts: 2,320
Karma: 23599604
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: In the ironbound section, near avenue L
Device: Just a whole bunch. I guess I am a collector now.
|
Pew is only respected in some quarters.
It was originally founded by the Tribune corporation as "Tribune Research" to produce push polls for the Tribune line of newspapers. Their methodology was considered shoddy by those of us outside of journalism profession, but the Chicago Tribune loved having an in-house organization that could engineer data to back up anything they decided to print. The name was changed to Pew Research some years after the parent corporation spun the research division off as a separate entity. The corporate history was recounted on the Pew website until about 2008. You will tend to find journalists touting Pew Research because it is a corporation originally founded by and for the profession. |
Advert | |
|
09-04-2016, 09:20 AM | #6 | |
Just a Yellow Smiley.
Posts: 19,161
Karma: 83862859
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Texas
Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy
|
Quote:
The fact is the people in the Gallup polls all signed up for it. Pew apparently just cold calls. How is that better? By the way: the questions are loaded on most of their polls. They have caught me a time or two. |
|
09-04-2016, 09:40 AM | #7 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,732
Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
|
Quote:
As in, in a household of multiple readers, who do they interview? Mom? Dad? No. The kid. Given the known biases by age, focusing on the youngest adult in the family will unavoidably skew the results towards print. (Textbooks!) Similarly, the focus on single-book readers without context (was that one book read a regular ocurrence or an accident, was it choice or homework?) biases the results towards the practices of students and casual readers rather than regular book buyers. It's a meaningless report. |
|
09-04-2016, 10:02 AM | #8 |
Addict
Posts: 282
Karma: 2603524
Join Date: Jan 2015
Device: Onyx Boox Darwin, inkBOOK Obsidian
|
It would be meaningless. Most who answer the phone to a pollster just hang up.
You can have caller ID and call blocking on any phone. Any poll can be skewed. |
09-04-2016, 10:47 AM | #9 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,181
Karma: 39854870
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: near Philadelphia USA
Device: Kindle Kids Edition, Fire HD 10 (11th generation)
|
1,520 live calls is more than most polls.
In the 25 percent that was land-line calls, yes. Quote:
This wasn't a study geared towards people who market novels. If someone starts a trade organization and funds a study that focuses on the kind of readers you think can be your direct or indirect customers, we can have a thread on that. Maybe we already have! And any umpire can be played. |
|
09-04-2016, 11:14 AM | #10 | |
Is that a sandwich?
Posts: 8,228
Karma: 101696762
Join Date: Jun 2010
Device: Nook Glowlight Plus
|
Quote:
|
|
09-04-2016, 11:33 AM | #11 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 7,196
Karma: 70314280
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA
Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2
|
Quote:
Last edited by pwalker8; 09-04-2016 at 11:36 AM. |
|
09-04-2016, 12:10 PM | #12 | |
Well trained by Cats
Posts: 30,437
Karma: 58055868
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Central Coast of California
Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A
|
Quote:
I have never been polled where there was not a detectable slant. I usually can figure it from the answer choices within 4 or 5 questions When you have a pool of prequalified (those who signed up), the sample is already at least 1 layer filtered: 'People who sign up for things' |
|
09-04-2016, 01:43 PM | #13 | |
Grand Sorcerer
Posts: 11,732
Karma: 128354696
Join Date: May 2009
Location: 26 kly from Sgr A*
Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000
|
Quote:
That lack of nuance is what makes the poll meaningless. The textbook market is entirely different from the commercial book markets because those "readers" don't have a choice. |
|
09-04-2016, 02:32 PM | #14 |
Wizard
Posts: 2,459
Karma: 68781975
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Arkansas
Device: Paperwhite 4
|
I just did a bit of googling on polls in the USA and then again on US Presidential polls. As Steve Eisenberg says, this poll used a fairly large sample compared to most.
All in all, based on what I read here, this seems to be as fair a poll as most. I don't particularly like the results but I see no particular reason to dismiss them. I prefer ebooks and I'd be a bit happier if everybody else did too. This doesn't really surprise me though. I always am a bit skeptical of polls. There are so many variables and even if we asume the pollers re experts who don't want to slant things, they can't get it right all the time. It's just too complex. I am impressed with how often they seem to get things right. I think polls are useful for getting an idea of what the truth might look like. It's a bit silly to think of them as Truth. Barry |
09-04-2016, 03:27 PM | #15 | |
Is that a sandwich?
Posts: 8,228
Karma: 101696762
Join Date: Jun 2010
Device: Nook Glowlight Plus
|
Quote:
The 18-29 age group is the most important in trying to predict future trends. The habits they form now will hopefully continue for the next 50 years. One positive figure is that 83% of that age group read for pleasure (the highest) so while some of them may be expected to read textbooks they also seem to enjoy them and other material. |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
E-Book Survey (Research) | MD123 | General Discussions | 33 | 01-27-2014 07:43 AM |
How do Millennials prefer their News - Pew Research | kennyc | General Discussions | 39 | 12-17-2012 06:55 PM |
Pew Research: 2012 USA tablet marketshare (Fire 21%, Ipad 52%) | Top100EbooksRank | News | 34 | 10-06-2012 03:09 PM |
Pew research weighs in | jbcohen | News | 10 | 04-13-2012 02:30 PM |
Graduate Research Survey On Kindle Users | sirbruce | Amazon Kindle | 0 | 04-18-2009 11:48 PM |