Readers Overwhelmingly Prefer Physical Books
15 August 2022: A new survey among 2,400 book readers of all ages in the United States, U.K., France and Germany found that people still overwhelmingly prefer physical books for their look, their feel and even their smell. The study, commissioned by paper producer Stora Enso, showed 65% of respondents prefer physical books, versus 21% who prefer e-books and 14% audiobooks.
These results confirmed our expectations that the market for physical books is set to stay strong, which is good news for our printer and publishing customers,” said Stora Enso’s Jonathan Bakewell, Vice President, Head of Segment Office and Book Papers. But there were some surprise results from the youngest group (16-to-24 year olds) polled, where 70% said they preferred physical books over e-books.
This enthusiasm for books among Gen Zers, who are more likely to be the digital disrupters, seems partially fueled by the manga-book craze, driven by Netflix anime series, as well as a recent explosion in top-selling teen romance books. For older age groups, physical books have been outselling e-books in areas like human potential and mindfulness, particularly during the pandemic as people took pause to look inward.
People have begun rediscovering reading, partly prompted by the pandemic, where many were tethered to their screens all day for work or school, then didn’t want to take them to the sofa when it was time to relax. A majority of respondents (63%) said they read more during Covid, including nearly 70% in the U.K. and U.S. In the youth segment, 64% said they read more and, notably, 76% of young people in the U.S .and 73% in the U.K. During the isolation, the physicality of a book felt more comfortable for some than a digital reader. Some even cited the smell of a physical book that could evoke pleasant memories.
Books and the paper they are printed on are circular, and renewable. 42% of readers said they like to keep books when they finish reading them, while 26% loan or donate them. A further 26% sell their books and the remaining 5% recycle or discard them. e-books require energy to manufacture and run their reader devices and to maintain the massive server farms than supply their content.
Carbon neutrality was high on the agenda for most, with 61% of all respondents and 70% of youth saying they would pay more (on average 5.7% of the retail price) for carbon neutral books. A majority would also buy from an outlet that provided carbon neutral or carbon offset books.
