E-books versus print books: Readers' choices and preferences across contexts

With electronic book (e-book) sales and readership rising, are e-books positioned to replace print books? This study examines the preference for e-books and print books in the contexts of reading purpose, reading situation, and contextual variables such as age, gender, education level, race/ethnicity, income, community type, and Internet use. In addition, this study aims to identify factors that contribute to e-book adoption. Participants were a nationally representative sample of 2,986 people in the United States from the Reading Habits Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project (http://pewinternet.org/Shared -Content/Data-Sets/2011/December-2011--Reading -Habits.aspx). While the results of this study support the notion that e-books have firmly established a place in people’s lives, due to their convenience of access, e-books are not yet positioned to replace print books. Both print books and e-books have unique attributes and serve irreplaceable functions to meet people’s reading needs, which may vary by individual demographic, contextual, and situational factors. At this point, the leading significant predictors of e-book adoption are the number of books read, the individual’s income, the occurrence and frequency of reading for research topics of interest, and the individual’s Internet use, followed by other variables such as race/ethnicity, reading for work/school, age, and education.