Oct

Periodical Reading on Tablets on the Rise, Kindle Fire in the Lead

Photo courtesy of mnn.com

comScore, a global leader in measuring statistics on digital content consumption, released its findingson digital magazine and newspaper use by consumers for the previous period. While the overall numbers of subscribers who read throughout a one-month period on their tablets wasn’t surprising—and in fact, was a very encouraging indicator of consumer choice—there were some interesting statistics concerning which devices are in the lead.

Over the summer months, more than 37% of tablet owners read a newspaper at least once, with more than 11% of those consumers reading a digital newspaper on their devices every day; 39.6% of tablet owners read a digital magazine on their devices at least once during that same time frame.

The interesting thing is that Kindle Fire edges out the iPad in terms of digital newspaper and magazine reading. More than 39% of Kindle Fire users read a newspaper and almost 44% of them read a magazine during that time period, but iPad users were at 38.3% and 40.3% for those same periodicals, respectively. Interestingly, Nook tablet readers were in the smallest percentage for every category, even behind the designation for an Android tablet that was not a Kindle Fire or Nook, except for the daily use of newspaper, when Nook owners rose to the top with an astounding 13.4 percent.

“Tablets are fundamentally redefining how people consume news and information, with the format more conducive to reading longer form content than PCs or smartphones,” said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile, in the press release. “In the case of online newspapers, tablets are now driving 7 percent of total page views, an impressive figure considering the relative infancy of the tablet space. Publishers that understand how these devices are shifting consumption dynamics will be best positioned to leverage this platform to not only drive incremental engagement among current subscribers but also attract new readers.”

The results from comScore went on to break down the results by gender and age demographic as well, with some interesting findings. The overwhelming majority of digital newspaper and magazine readers were male, and the 25-34 year age bracket was the most likely to read these periodicals on their tablets.

Mercy Pilkington (1087 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com