Final Reading for Pleasure

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Reading Habits in the U.S. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Collaboration and Decision Technologies MT 8312

Professor Murtaza Haider Peter (Yi Nan) Zhang

500597806

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Table of Content !!

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Table of Content 2

Background 3

Methodology 4

Demographic Factors 4 Age 4

Sex 5

Marriage 6

Employment 6

Income 7

Education 8

Personal and Technological Factors 9 Other reading related activities 9

Electronic usage 9

Book recommendation from different sources 10

Conclusion 11

Reference 12

Appendices 12 Appendix A: general linear regression model findings 12

Appendix B: Code-work 13

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Background !The strength of a democracy is based on how well-informed its citizens are, and the wealth of a nation is also based on the capability of its workers to transform knowledge into value. After the invention of written characters in Mesopotamia, reading became this crucial process of information transmission. This mode of transmission is versatile, long-lasting, and iterative. Moreover, on a personal level, reading provides individuals with entertainment, personal-growth, and consolation. In today’s digital age, reading also extends the boarder of one’s imagination and spurs collaboration between different cultures. !Troublingly, developed countries such as the U.S. are lacking behind in terms of proficiency in reading. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Education issued statistics on the literacy level of adult Americans: !

32 million adults in the U.S. can't read (14 percent of the entire population); 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read. !

To compound the matter, in the recent 2011 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. ranked 17th place among other PISA participants, which includes Finland, Japan, and Canada. Other than the poor ranking relative to the investment in education, interstate and interracial differences is even more pronounced. Most Southern states such as Alabama and Louisiana ranked close to developing countries; Hispanic students’ reading proficiency is at 5%, while white students rank at 40% (figure A). !Outside of the school environment, the propensity for U.S. citizens to read had been captured by the Pew Research Center, and the purpose of this report is to understand socio-demographical, personal, and technological factors that could played a part in the development of reading habits, particular that of reading for pleasure. ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Figure A: Percentage of students in the class of 2011 in the U.S. at the proficient level in math and reading, by race and ethnicity

Source: Peterson, Woessmann, Hanushek, Lastra-Anadon (2011). Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?

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Methodology !The data taken from The Pew Research Center contains 2,950 respondents aged 16 and above, 1,125 via cellphones, another 1,125 through landline, and an oversample consisting of 350 e-reader users and 350 tablet users. Data points not relevant towards this report are excluded, and the following are included in the statistical survey and modelling of this report: age; sex; personal income; employment status; educational achievement; marital status; reading habit for work, special topics, or news; book recommendation from library, online, family/friends, or bookstores; preference of either print or electronic books; personal computer and handheld devices use.

The general linear model used is:

read_pleasure ~ sex+age+mar+educ+emplnw+handheld_use+read_work +read_news+read_topic+recom_lib+recom_fam+recom_online+recom_store+

print+audio+ebook+lib_card+condition+pc_use !Chi-square, logit-regression, and step-wise regression were used in this report, and the software used is R-commander. The model fit the observed data closely with a AIC of 590.95 and BIC of 697.72. !!

Demographic Factors Age Age plays as an important factor in people’s reported frequency of reading for pleasure. Our data is recoded into young adult(18-25), adult(26-35), middle aged(36-50), and seniors (>50) for logit regression purposes. As age increases, there is a increase in reading frequency, and this difference is not resulted from chance alone, as Pearson’s Chi-squared test showed a significant value of 4.574e-13 (figure 1). This is finding is likely due to relatively more leisure time seniors enjoy as compared to the other demographics. !However, there is a pattern between young adult verses adult compared to middle aged verses seniors. 5% difference in frequency of reading for pleasure exists between young adult and adult, and between middle aged and seniors (grey arrows); while there are approximately 20% difference between adult and middle aged groups (red arrow). There could be many explanations for this pattern, and two

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Figure 1: Impact of age on reading habit

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alternatives are most plausible: 1) job security and title after 35 years of age improve drastically compared to younger cohort, resulting in more leisure time to read for pleasure; 2) younger cohorts are born between 1980 to 1996, after the explosion of cable TV and other sorts of entertainment (such as portable music, internet contents, etc.). Further validation of these two theories requires further phenomenology studies. Yet, when all else being equal, in our logit descriptive model, there is no statistical impact of age on the likelihood for any single group to have a higher frequency of reading for pleasure. !Sex !The folklorish Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus distinguished the thought pattern differences between the two sexes, and modern neuroscience also supported anatomical and bio-chemical such dissimilarities (WebMD, 2005). In the early ages, girls outperform boys in the use of language (including reading/speech/writing), and at maturity, females also exhibit dominant language skills than males (WebMD, 2005). Naturally, we would be lead to believe that women are more likely to read for pleasure than males. !Simple cross-tab analysis confirms and supports female preference in reading for pleasure (figure 2). Females reported 15% points higher rate of reading for pleasure compared to males, and the finding is not due to chance in sampling (Chi-squared p-value=3.189e-12). !Yet, when holding all other dependent variables in to account, women are in fact 53% less likely than men to read for pleasure, which is contrary to the cross-tab finding. In conjunction with economic disparity (figure 3), the 19% gender related wage gap (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011), and disproportional stress put on women for child care (Hill & Hill, 1990) are to be expected to reduce leisure time enjoyed by women. !Economist (2009) reported that in 18 of the OECD countries studied, men enjoy approximately 20 minutes per day compared to women.

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Figure 2: Impact of sex on reading habit

Figure 3: Income distribution between male and female

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Marriage !Marriage has many economic and health sequelae on an individual, and its influence extends towards one’s literary life as well. Figure 4 shows that never been married individuals reported to read less frequently compared to married, divorced, and widowed people (Chi-squared p-value= 1.189e-6). Such discovery is counterintuitive since if we assume that un-married (presumably single) people to read less, then we would expect divorced or widowed individuals to share similar frequency of reading for pleasure. Besides, we are set with the hurdle to refine our definition of married, never been married etc. since marital status does not tell us the intricacy of relationships people are in. For all we know, there could be married but separate individuals as well as common-law partners. !To dispel the first dilemma, we should control for other factors’ that could sway our finding. After logit regression analysis, all else being equal, only the never-been-married group has statistical significant impact on the likelihood of people reading for pleasure. This group is actually 437% more likely than married group to read for pleasure (p-value=2.9e-7). This finding makes more intuitive sense, since child rearing would take a bigger chunk of leisure time away from married people. Moreover, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics report in 2012 find that married people spend 100% more time (2 hours) on housework (excluding child care) than single people. !Employment !Amongst the groups with different employment statuses, retirees hold the highest rate of reading for pleasure (81%). Both full-time and part-time workers have closely 75% habits of reading for pleasure. However, only 58% of the people who are working without pay (i.e. internship, self-employed) read for pleasure (figure 5) (Chi-squared p-value=3.1e-6). All else being equal, retirees are 232% more likely than full-time employees to read for pleasure. !!!!!!!!!

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Figure 4: Impact of marital status on reading habit

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Income !As people’s income ascend, they enjoy more time reading for pleasure (figure 6), and across different gender groups and income level females reported more frequency of reading for pleasure, and the gap closes off to 4% points in the highest income bracket (figure 7).

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Figure 5: Impact of employment status on reading habit

Figure 6: Impact of income on reading habit (excluding the last two columns)

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!Education !A majority of the educational process involves reading tome after tome of academic literature. We now look at how does educational attainment affects people’s reading activity in their leisure time. !Educational attainment has direct relationship with people’s preference to read for pleasure. Reading rate reaches 92% among people with professional and post-graduate degree (including MD, JD) (figure 8). !!

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Figure 7: Impact of sex and income on reading habit Figure 8: Impact of education on reading habit

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Personal and Technological Factors !Other reading related activities !Along with reading for pleasure, three other metrics were taken to account for reading related activities in the sample: Reading for work, news, and special topics. People who read news and special topics are 55% to 65% points more likely to report also reading for pleasure (figure 9). However, all else being equal, only people who read for work and pleasure are 920% more likely to read for pleasure than just reading for pleasure alone, and respondents who read news and special topics combined with reading for pleasure are 64% and 91% less likely to read for pleasure than just reading for pleasure alone. ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Electronic usage !Consumer electronics contributed greatly to the dissemination and cost-effective transmission of reading materials. The wide-spread of these devices should have a positive impact, at least, on the availability of reading materials, if not the willingness to read for pleasure. !We found that respondents using a personal computer and handheld device (tablet or mobile phone) are approximately 25% points more likely to response reading for pleasure. For the case of handheld devices, the positive response reached 89% (figure 10). All else being equal,

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Figure 9: Impact of other reading habits on reading activity for pleasure

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PC usage increase the likelihood of a person reading for pleasure by 533%, but handheld device users are 73% less likely to read for pleasure. ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Book recommendation from different sources !Having a mode of obtaining books to read is not enough, people need recommendations for new titles they are interested or likely to be interested in. Across the board, people with any source (library, family & friends, bookstores, and online) of recommendation reported reading for pleasure 30% of the time (figure 11). !However, all else being equal, having a source of recommendation decrease the likelihood of respondents reading for pleasure by 65% across board. Such paradoxical finding can be thought of people who already read for pleasure out of their own volition will happen, by chance, to have multiple sources of recommendation for books. While, actually having someone who doesn’t like to read and give him/her a source of recommendation for books, will decrease the likelihood for his/her to develop a habit of reading for pleasure. !!!!!!!

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Figure 10: Impact of pc and handheld devices use on reading habit

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Conclusion !Gender, marital status, employment status, other related reading activities, source of book recommendations and electronic devices all help explaining the past history of people’s reading habits. However, that is not to say what will determine the future of reading. Statistics only give us a cross-sectional look at what the era and technology enabled, and the active change of people’s behaviour and pass-time can hardly altered by simply increase the PC use. !As new lexicon and culture chic come into existence, the emotion people associate with reading will change; novel forms of media will also alter the delivery methods of literature, for instance, video games combine both narrative and interactivity with a splash of fun. What will ultimately drive more people to read is the entertainment, self-realization, and learning they derive from reading for pleasure, and statistics will be there to capture the snapshot and make appropriate historic footnote. !!!!!!

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Figure 11: Impact of source of book recommendation on reading habit

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Reference !DePaulo, B. (2014). What Married and Single People Do Differently. Retrieved from: http:// www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201403/what-married-and-single- people-do-differently !Hill, E. M. & Hill, M. A.(1990). Gender Differences in Child Care and Work: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2011.pdf !Lastra-Anadon, C. X., Hanushek, E. A., Peterson, P. E. & Woessmann, L. (2011). Globally Challenged: Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete? !National Assessment of Adult Literacy (2013). Literacy Rate - How Many Are Illiterate. Retrieved from: http://www.caliteracy.org/rates/ !Solis, H.L.(2011). Women in the Labor Force: A Databook. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/ cps/wlf-databook-2011.pdf !The Economist (2009). Leisure Inequality: It’s a Man’s World. Retrieved from: http:// www.economist.com/node/13717514 !WebMD (2005). How Male and Female Brains Differ: researchers reveal sex differences in the brain's form and function. Retrieved from: http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/ how-male-female-brains-differ !

Appendices !!Appendix A: general linear regression model findings ! [,1] (Intercept) -‐100.000 sex[T.Female] -‐53.193 age[T.adult] -‐23.714 age[T.middle aged] -‐17.487 age[T.seniors] 25.882 mar[T.Never been married] 437.188 mar[T.Divorced] 24.857 mar[T.Widowed] 55.835 educ[T.High school incomplete (grades 9-‐11)] 1757457366.333 educ[T.High school graduate (grade 12 or GED certificate)] 23573637.138 educ[T.Technical, trade or vocational school AFTER high school] -‐95.860 educ[T.Some college, no 4-‐year degree (includes associate degree)] 15451412.449 educ[T.College graduate (B.S., B.A., or other 4-‐year degree)] 28811109.113 educ[T.Post-‐graduate training/professional school after college] 34823486.863

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emplnw[T.no pay] 36.906 emplnw[T.part time] 28.180 emplnw[T.retired] 232.126 handheld_use[T.yes] -‐73.145 read_work[T.frequent] 920.523 read_news[T.frequent] -‐64.440 read_topic[T.frequent] -‐91.022 recom_lib[T.yes] -‐64.970 recom_fam[T.yes] -‐68.338 recom_online[T.yes] 25.949 recom_store[T.yes] -‐64.707 print[T.yes] -‐78.808 audio[T.yes] 57.651 ebook[T.yes] -‐8.403 lib_card[T.yes] -‐10.260 condition[T.yes] 97.374 pc_use[T.yes] 533.208 !Appendix B: Code-work !library(foreign, pos=4) Reading <-‐ read.spss("/Users/peterzhang/Desktop/FInal Data Assignment /December-‐2011-‐-‐Reading-‐Habits/December_2011_Reading_Habits_spss.sav", use.value.labels=TRUE, max.value.labels=Inf, to.data.frame=TRUE) colnames(Reading) <-‐ tolower(colnames(Reading)) !attach(Reading) sub <-‐ subset(Reading, select=c(sex,intuse,age,mar,hh1,parread,educ,emplnw,stud,race,inc,q2a,q2b,q2c,q2d,q4,q5,q11a,q11b,q11c,q11d,q12a,q12b,q12c,q12d,q13,q14,q16a,q16b,q16c,q17a,q17b,q17c,q17d,q20,q24,q26,q38a,q38b)) !names(sub)[c(12:39)] <-‐ c("cell_use","pc_use","handheld_use","tablet_use","time_purc_ereader","plan_purc_ereader","read_work","read_pleasure","read_news","read_topic","recom_lib","recom_fam","recom_online","recom_store","n_read","condition","print","audio","ebook","read_tab","read_reader","read_pc","read_cell","place_purc","per_digital","lib_card","prf_print","prf_ebook","weight") !!sub$intuse <-‐ Recode(sub$intuse, 'c("Yes") = "Yes";c("No") = "No"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$mar <-‐ Recode(sub$mar, 'c("Married") = "Married";c( "Never been married") = "Never been married";c("Divorced")= "Divorced"; c("Widowed")="Widowed"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$parread <-‐ Recode(sub$parread, 'c("Everyday")="Everyday"; c("A few times a week")="A few times a week"; c("About once a week")="About once a week"; c("Less

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often")="Less often"; c("A few times a month")="A few times a month";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$emplnw <-‐ Recode(sub$emplnw, 'c("Employed full-‐time")= "full time"; c("Retired")="retired"; c("Not employed for pay")="no pay"; c("Employed part-‐time")="part time";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$cell_use <-‐ Recode (sub$cell_use,'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$pc_use <-‐ Recode (sub$pc_use,'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$handheld_use <-‐ Recode (sub$handheld_use,'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$tablet_use <-‐ Recode (sub$tablet_use,'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$time_purc_ereader <-‐ Recode (sub$time_purc_ereader, 'c("Within the past 30 days")="Within the past 30 days";c("Within the past six months")="Within the past six months";c("Within the past 12 months")="Within the past 12 months";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$plan_purc_ereader <-‐ Recode (sub$plan_purc_ereader, 'c("Yes, plan to purchase in next six months")="next six months";c("Considering purchasing but not in next six months")="not in six months";c("Not considering purchasing")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$recom_lib <-‐ Recode (sub$recom_lib,'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$recom_fam <-‐ Recode (sub$recom_fam, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$recom_online <-‐ Recode (sub$recom_online, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$recom_store <-‐ Recode (sub$recom_store, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$condition <-‐ Recode (sub$condition, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$print <-‐ Recode (sub$print, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$audio <-‐ Recode (sub$audio, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$ebook <-‐ Recode (sub$ebook, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$place_purc <-‐ Recode (sub$place_purc, 'c("Purchase the book")="purchased";c("Borrow the book from a library ")="borrow lib";c("Borrow the book from a friend or family member")="borrow fam";c("Got the book some other way (SPECIFY)")="other";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$per_digital <-‐ Recode (sub$per_digital, 'c("MORE time reading")="more time";c("LESS time reading")="less time";c("About the SAME amount of time")="same";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$lib_card <-‐ Recode (sub$lib_card, 'c("Yes")="yes";c("No")="no";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$prf_print <-‐ Recode (sub$prf_print, 'c("Prefer purchasing own copy")="own";c("Prefer borrowing")="borrow";c("(VOL.) No preference")="no pref";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$prf_ebook <-‐ Recode (sub$prf_ebook, 'c("Prefer purchasing own copy")="own";c("Prefer borrowing")="borrow";c("(VOL.) No preference")="no pref";else=NA',as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$read_work <-‐ Recode(sub$read_work,

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'c("Yes, every day or almost every day") = "frequent";c( "No, never do this") = "never"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$read_pleasure <-‐ recode(sub$read_pleasure, 'c("Yes, every day or almost every day") = "frequent";c( "No, never do this") = "never"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$read_news <-‐ recode(sub$read_news, 'c("Yes, every day or almost every day") = "frequent";c( "No, never do this") = "never"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$read_topic <-‐ recode(sub$read_topic, 'c("Yes, every day or almost every day") = "frequent";c( "No, never do this") = "never"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$age <-‐ recode(sub$age, '18:25= "young adult"; 26:35="adult"; 36:50="middle aged"; 51:120="seniors"; else=NA', as.factor.result=TRUE) sub$age <-‐ factor(sub$age, levels=c('young adult','adult','middle aged','seniors')) sub$mar <-‐ factor(sub$mar, levels=c('Married','Never been married','Divorced','Widowed')) sub$read_work <-‐ factor(sub$read_work, levels=c('never','frequent')) sub$read_news <-‐ factor(sub$read_news, levels=c('never','frequent')) sub$read_topic <-‐ factor(sub$read_topic, levels=c('never','frequent')) !GLM.1 <-‐ glm(read_pleasure ~ sex +age +mar +educ+ emplnw +handheld_use +read_work +read_news +read_topic+ recom_lib +recom_fam +recom_online+ recom_store + print +audio+ ebook+ lib_card+condition+pc_use, family=binomial(logit), weights=weight, data=sub) summary(GLM.1) round(cbind((exp(coef(GLM.1))-‐1)*100),3) !step_glm <-‐ step(GLM.1) options(scipen=999) !!!!

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Final Reading for Pleasure