Indians spend the most time reading in the world
On an average, Indians spend more than 10 hours per week reading.
India has come out on top in a survey conducted by NOP World Culture Score Index among 30 major countries to identify people in which country spends the most time reading. According to the ranking, people in India read 10.4 hours every week. That amounts to about an hour and a half of reading every day on average. With 9.24 hours and 8 hours respectively, Thailand and China come in second and third on the list behind India.
The Philippines, Egypt, and the Czech Republic follow with weekly readings of 7.36 hours, 7.3 hours, and 7.24 hours, respectively. Russia, Sweden, France, and Hungary completed the top 10 with 7.06, 6.54, 6.54, and 6.48 hours respectively. Unexpectedly, the reading obsession has little to do with literacy as European nations with high literacy rates and top-notch educational systems, like Finland, Norway, and Denmark, fail to rank in the top 10 of the list.
Only two European nations, Sweden and France, which are ranked eighth and ninth, respectively, have strong educational systems and are also in the top 10. India has a literacy rate of 74.04% (2011 census) while the others in the top 5 Thailand, China, Philippines, and Egypt have literacy rates of 93.5%, 95.1%, 95.4%, and 73.9% respectively.
So what is the reason behind India’s rank? For starters, Indian authors have been seeing success on a global scale, with Arvind Adiga who also won a Man Booker Prize for the White Tiger, the success of Indian authors could be a reason for the much-needed boost in the Indian publishing business. Another reason could be the level of ease the internet provides users to access their favorite e-books. Kindle, a pioneer for e-book services in India propelled the craze in the right direction.
