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In the wake of a heated debate regarding supposedly falling e-book sales, Pew Research Center released data indicating that e-reader ownership is on the decline. According to Thursday's report, 19% of adults in America own a dedicated e-reader , such as those made by Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This figure represents a dramatic decrease from 2014, when 32% of adults owned an e-reader.
This, however, follows last week's report from Pew stating that 27% of Americans have read an e-book in the past twelve months. In 2011, only 17% of Americans had read an e-book in the past year.
It appears, then, that American adults are reading e-books on other platforms, and that children may make up a large portion of e-book consumption.
According to Pew, 45% of adults own a tablet and 68% of adults own a smartphone--two devices capable of housing e-reader apps. In addition, 73% of adults own a desktop or laptop computer.
While it is unclear where the e-readers owned by the 13% of adults who no longer own them have gone, or why they have been abandoned so suddenly, it's apparent that e-books are being read--but the experience of engaging with them is becoming enmeshed in the experience of using a wi-fi capable device. The people reading e-books are doing a lot of other things on their digital devices, too.
It's possible that using a dedicated e-reader is becoming inconvenient, as smartphone screens get bigger and wi-fi becomes more pervasive. It's also possible that purchasing another device has become an unnecessary expense, or that the technology servicing e-readers (namely e-ink, the technology that delivers text to e-reader screens using less energy than tablets or phones, which rely on backlights) provides few benefits--particularly in comparison to smartphones, which make up for what they lack in battery life by giving users a high range of functionality.
Regardless, people are reading e-books elsewhere. A survey conducted by Library Journal published on Thursday reports that 94% of libraries surveyed offer e-books to visitors, and their e-book catalogues increased by 37% in the past year. The demand for the adult e-books in these collections has increased 80% over the past year; the demand for young adult e-books has increased 65% and the demand for children's e-books, 52%. And according to a study published by Digital Book World and PlayCollective earlier this year, children under the age of thirteen read e-books once a week.
A large portion of America, then, is reading books digitally, and is finding ways to do it. We can expect to see e-reader ownership decline further as the digital reading experience becomes more integrated into the everyday digital lives of American readers.
