Taiwanese spend an average of six hours a week reading and around one in four people reads for an hour or more a day, according to a survey on reading behavior released on Thursday last week by the Eslite Bookstore chain.
The survey also showed that nearly one in three people spend less than an hour a day reading, especially young people.
The survey, conducted by the Global Views Survey Research Center from Oct. 24 to Nov. 3, found that those aged between 20 and 60 purchased an average of nine books a year, while about 60 percent of respondents said they visited bookstores at least once a month.
While more than 60 percent of those polled said they had read digital books over the past year, only 28 percent had spent money on e-books, the survey showed.
Even though Taiwanese buy more printed books than digital ones, the nation’s changing reading habits and the decreasing number of physical bookstores are cause for concern.
Hours spent reading — an average of six hours a week or about 51.43 minutes a day based on Eslite’s survey — are far less than the average of 3.35 hours a day that people spend online through their mobile devices, according to findings released by the National Development Council earlier this year.
Although some people order books online and pick them up at convenience stores, reading has continued its steady decline in the rankings of the public’s favorite leisure activities, judging by the average time that people spend on reading, their spending on books and the number of books purchased annually.
In another ominous sign for Taiwan’s reading habits, Taipei’s Chongqing S Road is rarely called “Bookstore Street” anymore, but has become known as a street of hotels, as several bookstores have been replaced by budget hotels to embrace growing numbers of independent travelers and backpackers.
Moreover, between 2006 and 2015, more than 1,000 bookstores, or nearly one-third, closed their doors in Taiwan due to high rent, slim profits and declining visitors, while large bookstore chains such as Eslite and Kingstone have managed to survive only by diversifying their offerings and streamlining operations.
Some brick-and-mortar bookstores have been forced to expand their product range to include souvenirs, stationery and coffee, and to lease out store space for cultural and arts events, in a bid to prop up sales and win more customers.
Transforming old-school shopping, better managing inventory and customer data, and offering high added-value products and services remain challenges for both physical and virtual bookstores. In short, bookstores must evolve, going beyond book sales to aim for closer engagement with consumers.
However, the most prominent problem that bookstores and publishers need to address remains the nation’s declining reading population and people’s poor reading habits amid the prevalence of the Internet and smartphones.
Everyone should take notice of those trends and do something to support the book trade. The central and local governments should make a continual effort to promote reading, while helping independent booksellers gain easy access to financing.
Otherwise, the future of the book market, the health of the publishing industry and the practice of reading itself will all be at risk.
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