People in thirty countries were asked about their reading habits. Guess who reads the most?

The average Indian citizen reads 10:42 hours per week. Korea fell at the opposite end of the spectrum just below Taiwan and Japan, indicating that the average person there reads 3:06 hours per week. The United States, which fell toward the bottom of the pack, reported that the average person reads 5:42 hours per week.

First of all, countries located in geographic clusters reported similar results. For instance, people in the Asian countries — of India, Thailand, China and the Philippines spend the most time reading.

The southernmost nations, including Venezuela, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, and Argentina all recorded similar results: 5:54 to 6:30 hours per week per person.

The Northern European and Middle Eastern countries also reported similar results. Egyptians are reading about 7:30 hours per week and Saudi Arabians are reading about 6:48 hours per week. The Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, France, and Hungary all reported numbers falling in between those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Another interesting finding was that that group of industrialized, first world countries including Spain, Canada, Germany, the U.S., and Italy reported relatively low rates of reading. The U.S. response of 5:42 hours per week per person tied that of Germany. That rate was also just lower than those of Turkey, Spain, and Canada and just higher than that of Italy.

Finally, the study also showed what genre of books people favor across the world. According to the study, 32% of respondents are reading fantasy books, rendering it the most popular genre

I found this study extremely fascinating. Many Asian nations revere scholars, mystics, intellectual success, which makes it logical that people in those countries read more. Whereas in the west we seem to revere "celebrities" or sportspeople. Presumably, as a group of nations, we're glued to the TV instead of reading.

The full details of the study are at: http://mic.com/articles/52703/can-you-guess-where-in-the-world-people-read-the-most

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.