This 43 percent this is an increase of nine percentage points, the highest in 10 years. Apart from 2020, this rate remained at a lower level for almost the entire decade. According to the National Library, which annually publishes a report on the state of reading in Poland, interest in libraries has also increased, especially among young men aged 25-39. Increasingly, potential readers are looking for new titles on the Internet, especially on social networking sites.
“For the first time, additional ways of obtaining information about books that are related to online links in the social circulation of books have been included. These are: multimedia podcasts, vlogs, short films, posts by influencers recommending books and reading on platforms such as TikTok, where the community is present BookTok, BookTube on YouTube or Instagram. The study recorded a group of 7% of readers using this source of information about books,” we read on the BN website. It is worth noting that “reading” applies to both paper books and e-books. However, audiobooks are not included.
More of us are reading, but are we reading more?
The National Library has been conducting systematic book reading research for over three decades. In autumn, 2,012 Poles over the age of 15 took part in the study, answering 20 questions. Thanks to this, we know, for example, that more Polish men and women read a book last year, but do we read more?
The fact that more Poles read them does not mean that the intensity of reading practices is also increasing – emphasize the authors of the report. They report that the percentage of people who read seven or more books in a year is 8%, so there are no statistically significant differences compared to previous years. And eight percent is very, very little!
From this point of view, we should think carefully about forecasts regarding the social reach of the book in the near future – for now it is too early to talk about the beginning of a new trend in this field.
– they emphasize. At the same time, they note that the significant increase in the social reach of the book in 2023 was accompanied by positive changes in the mood of Polish women and men, which were visible in the respondents’ answers. There are many indications that we have emerged from the long shadow of the pandemic, and other difficult circumstances, including the war that has been going on on our eastern border for two years, do not prevent the growth of optimism. The improvement in mood can also be seen in the subjective assessment of one’s economic situation – there were clearly more people who in 2023 expressed the belief that they had enough money for all their current needs without having to make special sacrifices than in 2022 (20% and 10%, respectively). .).
More women and more in paper. What would you like to do?
They are read primarily by people studying and learning (68%), and the percentage of readers who read at least seven books is almost twice as high as in the entire population (15%) – this is of course – but not only – related to reading, after that reach during education. Among people who admitted that they had not read any book in the past year, as many as 60 percent are those who claim to have read in the past, but only did so at school or college.
Women read more often than men and much more like to read a book – 53%. women like or like reading very much, while in the case of men this percentage is 36%. “It is not without significance that women are more often involved in raising children, including reading books to them. Thanks to this activity, they do not lose contact with reading for pleasure,” the scientists emphasize.
What do we read most often? among the most read books in 2023 in Poland were (in order): crime, romance and non-fiction literature (biographies, journalism, history of the 20th century) and guides.
If we read e-books, it’s not necessarily on e-readers. We access the Internet primarily through smartphones. “Just as reading books is not the most popular reading practice (we also read, for example, press articles – ed.), reading books in digital formats is very modest compared to other ways of using the Internet,” write the authors of the report. 7% of people read at least one title on an electronic device screen in 2023. readers, and – as the report points out – this number is slowly growing.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
