Over one fifth of people in Taiwan read no book last year: survey

More than one-fifth of people in Taiwan did not read a single book last year, as smartphones, tablets and computers take up most people's time, according to a survey on people's reading behavior by the United Daily News's Vision Project.

Excluding those who read comic books, magazines or digital books, about 40.8 percent of those surveyed said they read no print book in 2018, according to the survey that asked 1,556 respondents from Dec. 28, 2018, to Jan. 3, 2019.

Of those respondents who read no print books last year, about one-third of them said the last time they read a print book was one to three years ago. Another 20 percent said their last book reading occurred more than 10 years ago.

About 20.6 percent of respondents who read no books last year said they simply didn't like reading and 10.7 percent said they had no such book-reading habit, further analysis by the survey found.

And 40 percent said they had no time for reading or that reading took up too much time, according to the survey.

Among those who read print books, about one third spent one to three hours a week reading, and 14 percent spent three to five hours a week reading, 12 percent spent more than nine hours a week reading, according to the survey.