If you are reading this, chances are you’ve read a book in the past three months

AUSTRALIANS who read novels, non-fiction books or both spend more time on the internet than those who don’t read, research has found.

Student holding books in front of face in library, portrait

AUSTRALIANS who read novels, non-fiction books or both spend more time on the internet than those who don’t read, research has found.

Roy Morgan Research found book-reading Australians spent 18 hours or more online a week, while those who didn’t read books spent less than 17 hours a week in the year to March 2014.

And it appears that the more books you read, the more you go online.

Non-fiction readers spent a weekly average of 18 hours and seven minutes online, while those who read at least one novel and one non-fiction title in the three months prior to the survey spent 18 hours and 38 minutes a week online.

Australians who don’t read books watch more television than book lovers.

“Our data suggests that spending time online and reading books are far from mutually exclusive activities: indeed, those Australians who read novels, non-fiction books or both actually spend more time on the internet than those who don’t read,” Roy Morgan Research industry communications director Norman Morris said.

“Non-readers, on the other hand, tend to watch an above-average amount of television per week.”

Roy Morgan Research data also revealed the percentage of Australians who had read either a novel or non-fiction in the three months prior to the survey this year was 58.1 per cent, down from 64.1 per cent in 2004.

In that same period, the average time Australians spent on the internet rose from six hours and 40 minutes in 2004 to 17 hours and 25 minutes.

More Australians are buying ebooks online.

Roy Morgan Research said the number of Australians who owned e-readers had continued to rise.

In the year to March 2011, 2 per cent of Australians aged 14 and over said they had an e-reader in their household; by March 2014, this figure had multiplied sevenfold to 14.3 per cent.

Research shows that at the same time the proportion of Australians buying ebooks online in any given three months has increased from 5.5 per cent to 7.1 per cent, coinciding with a slight decline in those buying printed books online, from 10.7 per cent to 9.5 per cent.

Originally published as If you are reading this, chances are you’ve read a book in the past three months