The Société française des intérêts des auteurs de l'écrit (SOFIA), the Syndicat national de l'édition (SNE) and the Société des gens de lettres (SGDL) have published the results of the 11 e edition of the barometer of digital book usage. The survey, which studies the reading habits of the French in the year 2020, reveals an evolution of reading practices, whatever the medium, among 15/24 year olds.
"Reading frequency is increasingly high regardless of medium, but remains higher in print (39% of readers read at least one print book once a week) than digital (18%) or physical audio (9%) and digital (16%)." the report says.
The practice of reading at home, during the vacations or in the evening, is no longer only the places and times privileged for the reading of printed books, but also very largely for the reading of digital books, underlines the SNE.
The smartphone dominates
Another finding of the barometer is that the smartphone is the most widely owned device among readers and also the most used medium for reading (42% of readers) or listening (52% of listeners) to digital books. The laptop is the second medium with the highest growth in usage. The e-reader is also widely used.
More than one in four French people (26%) say they have already read a digital book in early 2021. This represents more than one million more readers in twelve months (13.8 million). Note that in the same study in 2016, 20% of respondents said they read digital books.
