Users prefer tablet screens over paper for reading

A slight majority of people that use tablets or e-readers show a preference for reading from their devices than from paper. Furthermore, the time they spend reading from tablet screens approximates the time they spend reading from paper, shows a Gartner survey.

52% of  tablet users amongst the 1600 international respondents preferred reading from a screen. 42% of the respondents is indifferent to the mediu. Tablets are rated very differently from laptops, the study shows. Almost half (47%) of laptop users prefers paper for reading. Younger people are quicker to adopt digital reading that older people. The age group of 40-54 was least enthousiastic about digital reading.

Director of research Nick Engelbrecht provides publishers with advices, based on the results of the study.  “There are concerns that digital media will cannibalize print media, based on the general decline in newspaper sales and take-up of online news services (…) but the evidence from our research is that print and online are not generally regarded as direct substitutes by consumers. Something more complicated than a straightforward substitution of print to digital media is taking place.”

According to Ingelbrecht, publishers can best answer to these developments by developing multi channel strategies and emphasising how different channels contribute to each other. “Trying to sell the same basic content to the same consumer in different formats risks alienating the consumer, who will balk at paying twice for the same thing (…). Content, publishing, and media organizations should market the synergies of multichannel products to consumers, stressing the benefits of having both print and online access, rather than selling competing stand-alone products.”

Source: Gartner