The lockdown had a very significant impact on the reading. 62.6 per cent of the population (64.5 per cent of men, 60.8 per cent of women) devoted themselves to reading books, magazines, newspapers, etc., compared to 29.6 per cent in the latest survey on the use of time. 39.7 percent read books, newspapers or other online or digitally, 34.6 percent on paper. On a day of Phase 1, reading emerges as one of those activities that managed to spend more time during the lockdown, both online (46.7 percent) and on paper (39.8 percent). This is what emerges from the Istata 2020 Report, which emphasizes that the importance of these results “is remarkable if we consider that, in the last decade, in parallel with the digital revolution, there has been a growing disaffection towards reading”.
In the case of books, for example, in less than 10 years, from 2010 (peak year of the share of readers) to 2019, the share of readers fell from 45.2 percent to 38.4 percent (of the total population aged 18 and over), with a decline that particularly affected the age group between 35 and 64, as well as children and adolescents. Despite the decrease, the gender gap remains unchanged which, since the end of the 1980s, has seen women more inclined to read books: in 2019, the share of female readers aged 18 and over stood at 42.5 per cent, 8.5 percentage points more than men (34 per cent). What happened during the lockdown therefore appears to be of particular interest. Reading books involved, on an average day, 26.9 percent of the population aged 18 and over, with a higher share of women (30.8 percent versus 22.7 percent for men) and young people up to 34 years (32 per cent). Reading e-books and / or online books concerned 7 percent of the population, especially young people, two thirds of which were women.
During the lockdown, the growth in newspaper reading is even more pronounced. Four out of 10 people have read at least one newspaper (digitally or on paper), a practice that is widespread among men more than among women, in the central-northern regions of the country more than in the South (about 43 percent compared to 36, 7 percent). About one third of the population aged 18 and over (32.3 percent) read newspapers online, compared with only 1 in 10 who read printed newspapers. Reading newspapers online is more often chosen by men, young people and adults.
