16 min
2025 (latest)
TIME SPENT READING
minutes per day reading for personal interest, all people 15+ · 2003–2025 · higher is better · BLS American Time Use Survey (series TUU10101AA01006315)
22 min
2003
23 min
high · 2004
16 min
low · 2018
−5 min
since 2003
┊ dashed lines mark 2008 Global financial crisis · 2020 COVID-19 pandemic
Method & caveats. BLS American Time Use Survey time-diary activity "reading for personal interest," civilians aged 15 and older, all days of the week. Diary coding, not a survey question, so there is no wording drift. 2020 was not published (COVID cut data collection) and is a real one-year hole. BLS publishes hours per day; stored here as minutes (×60, exact). Averaged over everyone — readers and non-readers alike (readers themselves average ~1.7 hours).
Sources
Every value on this page is read from the publisher below. Current and historical source documents:
- https://www.bls.gov/tus/
- https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v2/timeseries/data/TUU10101AA01006315
- https://github.com/danielmiessler/substrate/tree/main/Data/US-Societal-Health
Data
| Year | Time Spent Reading | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 16 min | −1 min |
| 2024 | 17 min | +1 min |
| 2023 | 16 min | +0 min |
| 2022 | 16 min | −1 min |
| 2021 | 17 min | +1 min |
| 2019 | 16 min | +1 min |
| 2018 | 16 min | −1 min |
| 2017 | 17 min | −1 min |
| 2016 | 17 min | −2 min |
| 2015 | 19 min | +0 min |
| 2014 | 19 min | +0 min |
| 2013 | 19 min | −1 min |
| 2012 | 20 min | +2 min |
| 2011 | 18 min | +0 min |
| 2010 | 18 min | −2 min |
| 2009 | 20 min | +0 min |
| 2008 | 20 min | −1 min |
| 2007 | 21 min | −1 min |
| 2006 | 22 min | −1 min |
| 2005 | 23 min | +0 min |
| 2004 | 23 min | +1 min |
| 2003 | 22 min | — |
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