Germans Spend Less than One Hour A Day Reading

According to a report released by the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden on Tuesday -- ahead of World Book Day on April 23 -- Germans spend an average of just 45 minutes a day reading. 22 minutes is devoted to perusing the papers, while only eight minutes are spent on books, and a mere five on magazines. The remaining ten minutes are spent reading instruction manuals, brochures and catalogs. Reading habits also depend on age, with young people between ten and fourteen reading for half an hour every day. Adults over forty, meanwhile, read an average of one hour a day. This age group, however, prefers newspapers to books. Those doing the most reading are the over-65s, who sit down with a book for an average of one and a half hours a day -- although surprisingly enough, men are apparently considerably more likely to do so than women.