August 9 was National Book Lovers Day, which is not a day you’d expect PCMag to cover, considering we haven’t been in print for 12 years [except for the occasionaloccasional bookbook.—Ed.]. But it occurred to the folks at SecondSale.com—a used-book e-seller—that the real competition for books are the many screens in our lives (yes, even screens showing ebooks). SecondSale conducted a survey with OnePoll of 2,000 people in the US to ask about their daily screen habits. The results are in the infographic below.
Perhaps a good omen for selling real paper books, more than half the respondents to the survey said they’re trying to limit exposure to screens after hours. The average time online people spend before unplugging is five and a half hours. Some have even set rules at home to stay away from the dreaded sleep-inhibiting blue light before bedtime.
Despite the fact that the survey was conducted for Book Lovers Day, reading books wasn’t the non-digital pastime most respondents looked forward to. Those were cooking (56%), music (62%), and spending time with family and friends (64%). A full 63% want to spend more time at the end of the day being unplugged.
What about books? While 54% said they’d rather read a physical book than an ebook on any device, only 30% said they want to dedicate more time to reading. Even less encouraging, 7 out of 10 said they get carried away with playing games on their phones during leisure time.
