The number of Italians who read is increasing: in 2023 they will be 74 percent. The new Aie data at “More books, more books”

Reading changes in Italy: reading habits, readers’ tastes, books published by publishers, both those by Italian authors and those purchased from abroad. But the panorama is not so gloomy: according to the survey by Pepe Research for the Italian Publishers Association, presented at More free books by Giovanni Peresson, head of the research office of Aie (Italian Publishers Association) the number of Italians who read is growing: in 2023 they are the 74 percent people between 15 and 74 years old who have read at least one printed book (even partially), one e-book or listened to an audiobook in the previous 12 months. In absolute values, these are 32.8 million people.

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by Sara Scarafia

08 December 2023

In 2022 the reading rate was 71 percent; In the 2019, 68 percent. But if the absolute number of readers grows, the percentage of those who read at least weekly decreases: it was 72%, now it is 67%. In the case of comic booksreaders are 21 percent of the population and, compared to the average reader, they read more often: 35 percent do it every day, compared to 31 percent of the overall universe of readers. Furthermore, comic book readers are also more familiar with social networks (95 percent frequent them every day compared to 90 percent of the readership universe).

READING HABITS CHANGE

As Peresson underlines, “more than the number of readers, other elements that qualify the act of reading are becoming relevant: compared to 2022, and it is a trend that had already been seen in previous years, the percentage of readers who read at least one once a week (it used to be 72 percent of readers, now it is 67 percent), while in parallel the percentage of those who read only a few times a year increases, from 8 percent to 13 percent. The average reading time during the week is 4 hours and 18 minutes, but a quarter of those interviewed (24 percent) declare that they have not read anything in the week preceding the survey and another 30 percent have done so for less than two hours. Therefore, more than half of Italians who declare themselves readers read for less than two hours a week.
Considering the new ways of reading, it emerges from the survey that a quarter of users of social platforms benefit from narrative content present on the same social platforms or on story sharing platforms. These are 10.2 million Italians, of which 15 percent do not read books, e-books or listen to audiobooks: equivalent to 3 percent of the population who look for stories outside of book form, whether printed or digital.

COMPARISON WITH ISTAT DATA

The reading rate of Italians detected by the Aie survey differs from that detected by Istat. Why? It depends on the type of question asked to the sample of interviewees.
The Istat investigation estimates that Italian readers are 39.3 percent of the population (aged six years and older) in 2022. The question posed to the sample was: “In the last 12 months, have you read books (paperback, ebook, online books or audiobooks)? Do you only consider books read for reasons that are not strictly scholastic or professional “. The question of the Aie survey, which considers the age group between 15 and 74 years in the sample and states that the survey excludes all forms of “compulsory” reading, whether scholastic or professional, is instead: “Thinking about the last 12 months you have read, even partially, a book of any genre, not only fiction (novel, mystery, comic, fantasy) but also an essay, a manual, a travel or cooking guide, etc or in digital format such as an e-book, or to listen to an audiobook?”.

The publisher comments to Ansa Giuseppe Laterzawho participated in the presentation of the Aie survey: “For Istat, a book read means all read. For the IEA Research Office it could be read in part. This is not a small difference. Some Istat data still does not include the reading of manuals, as if they were not real books. Therefore, it is necessary to bring these data into coherence as a whole so that they are comparable not only with the past but also with other European countries”. It is necessary to take into account, in a panorama of varied and evolving sources where even “book” now indicates different things .