Americans spend 16.2 minutes a day reading for fun
Some 69% of young executives and 43% of veteran professionals spend less than four hours a week reading for business.
Or so says the latest study by The Economist Intelligence Unit and Peppercomm.
Time spent reading for business
The study also found that:
- Research rules. 75% of executives seek business stories to research a business idea. But 93% of marketers connect content directly to products and services. Are you giving readers what they need?
- Content? Or marketing? 67% of executives say timely, unique content boosts brand perception. 71% say they don’t like content that seems more like a sales pitch than valuable information.
- Medium matters. 67% of executives prefer text over video or audio when making business decisions. Just 5% find videos helpful.
- Media? Maybe. Veteran professionals are more likely (35%) than Generation Nexters (23%) to consider articles in the media trustworthy.
Not that these numbers include time spent reading news, blogs, email newsletters and more. But they do not include time spent reading interpersonal emails — asking co-workers a quick question, providing a status update or offering feedback.
Time spent reading for fun
U.S. women spend just 18.6 minutes a day reading for pleasure, according to the 2019 American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. American men spend even less: an average of 13.8 minutes a day.
That means that on average, Americans spend about 16.2 minutes reading for fun.
They’re watching TV instead. Americans average five hours and 15 minutes (not 16 minutes!) of leisure time a day. What leisure activities are they doing instead of reading?
- Watching TV: 2.7 hours a day on average. That’s more than half of all leisure time — and more than 8 times the amount of time people devote to reading for fun.
- Socializing and communicating: 38 minutes a day.
- Using a computer for games or leisure: 26 minutes a day.
- Other leisure activities, including travel: 25 minutes a day.
- Sports, exercise and recreation: 19 minutes a day.
- Relaxing and thinking: 19 minutes a day.
- Reading: 16 minutes a day.
Do the math on time spent reading.
While they spend less than an hour each day reading for work and just 16 minutes a day reading for fun, Americans receive the data equivalent of 174 newspapers a day — ads included, according to a study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication.
Given this competition, how much of their reading time do you think they’re spending on your messages?
How can you reach all of your readers?
Read it and weep. More than half of all Americans have basic or below-basic reading skills, according to the DOE’s latest adult literacy test.
How well are you doing reaching these folks with your messages? 
To reach all of your readers — regardless of their reading level — please join me at Rev Up Readability, — our clear-writing workshop that begins on June 20.
You’ll learn to make every piece you write easier to read and understand. You’ll walk away with secrets you can use to reach more readers, measurably improve readability and sell concise writing to management. And you’ll learn to write messages that get more people to read your piece, read more of it, read it faster, understand it better and remember it longer.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
