Taiwanese spend an average of just over 20 minutes per day reading books, a private survey released yesterday showed.
The survey was conducted by the Grassroots Influence Foundation in March to analyze changes in reading habits among people over the age of 18.
The poll showed that 68 percent of respondents relied on television for information. About 16 percent gathered information using computers, tablet computers or smartphones. Only 11.75 percent received information through newspapers.
Although television was the main source of information for older, middle-aged and young people, their secondary sources diverged, with elderly and middle-aged people favoring newspapers, while young people go online or check their mobile devices for information, the survey showed.
People spent an average of 2.66 hours per day on computers, tablet computers and mobile phones for entertainment purposes or information. That compares with an average of 2.09 hours spent watching television, 31.2 minutes reading newspapers and 20.4 minutes reading books, the poll showed.
The popularity of mobile devices has also changed the way people shop, with more than 80 percent of the younger respondents saying they shop over the Internet.
The research also touched on the impact of mobile devices and media.
Foundation research center spokesperson Chen Sung-po (陳松柏) said that the government has held many seminars to introduce the cross-strait service trade agreement, but they failed to reach the general public because they mainly target industry representatives.
“Young people can easily mobilize hundreds of thousands of people through the use of social networks and mobile phone applications. The government can only reach its target audiences by understanding changes in reading habits,” Chen said.
Shih Hsin University professor Su Chien-chou (蘇健州) said obvious generational differences exist in media use. Instead of reading one or two newspapers, young people actively search for information over the Internet and through social networks, Su said.
National Taipei University of Technology professor Keng Ching-jui (耿慶瑞) said he was concerned that fewer people are reading printed books and that readership in general is declining.
“Perhaps we can tackle [the problem] by working on electronic books,” Keng said. “However, the market for ebooks has yet to mature.”
The survey collected a total of 1,084 valid samples with a margin of error of 3 percent.
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