9.1% of junior high school students use smartphones, 26.2% of high school students use e-books

The existence of the Internet has greatly shaken the paper-based publishing industry, but at the same time, by using it as an infrastructure to replace paper and providing and selling digital books, we are riding the trend of the times. There is also movement. With the rapid spread of smartphones and other terminals that serve as gateways to the Internet, how far have e-books penetrated among children? This time, based on the contents of the "Reiwa 2nd Year of the Internet Usage Environment Survey for Youth" (*) released by the Cabinet Office in March 2021, e-books using major Internet connection terminals in elementary, junior high and high school students Check the usage status of

The following shows the usage status of e-books among those who use the Internet through major Internet-connectable media. In the question table, only "electronic books" are described as the subject of "what are you doing", and there is no specific explanation. Strictly speaking, e-books and e-magazines are often treated as separate items, but in this case, it would be better to assume that the response was based on the judgment that all "books, comics, magazines, etc. that can be read on the Internet" are covered. No mistake. Also, since there is no separate setting for paid or free, it is assumed that the user simply answered whether or not they read the article.

Although some attributes are blank, it means that the respondent himself does not exist for that attribute.

On personal computers, most attributes are less than 10%. Only desktop PCs for female junior high school students exceeded 10%.

Tablet terminals are not much different from desktop computers for elementary school students, but there is a big difference after junior high school students. For elementary school students, tablets for learning show a value that exceeds personal computers and even smartphones, but for junior high and high school students, the value is not much different from smartphones. On the other hand, smartphones are in the 10% range among junior high school students, and a little over a quarter among high school students. It is calculated that more than a quarter of high school students who use the Internet using smartphones use e-books.

As for the usage of e-books among users of Internet terminals, smartphones are the top, followed by tablets for learning and tablet-type terminals. In addition, junior high school students are actively reading, and high school students have a reading rate of over 1/4 on smartphones.

However, this is limited to Internet users on the corresponding terminal. In order to understand the current status of e-books, I would rather know the usage status for each attribute. Therefore, the following graph shows the results of calculating the e-book usage ratio for each attribute. For example, the total number of smartphones is 11.8%, so 11.8% of all elementary school students to high school students, or more than 1 in 10 people, use e-books on smartphones.

Elementary school students who originally had a low Internet usage rate for each relevant terminal have only a usage rate that falls within the margin of error. It is a level that you can actually see as "no one reading". When it comes to junior high school students, the high usage rate of smartphones and tablet terminals shows a reasonable value.

And high school students. Since the usage rate of smartphones themselves is showing an overwhelming value, the usage rate of e-books using smartphones is also jumping up. 26.2% of all high school students, or about one in four, read e-books on their smartphones. In the case of a tablet type terminal, 1 person in 50 people.

Since this survey targeted elementary school students to high school students, it is not possible to grasp the trends of adults over college students. However, for example, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' communications usage trend survey, as of the end of 2015, when limited to Internet users, only 8.0% of men in their 40s accounted for this (relevant surveys since 2016). The item does not exist, so this is the latest value).

Since the survey styles are different, a simple comparison cannot be made, but it may be safe to say that high school students' willingness to read e-books on smartphones is quite high.

(Note) "ppt" in the graph means % points.

(Note) "(Great) Earthquake" refers to the Great East Japan Earthquake unless otherwise specified.

(Note) This article is a partial addition and change to the article published in [Garbage News].