iPads and mobiles are changing our reading habits

The ReaditLater site has produced some fascinating research into the way mobile (iPhone and iPads to be precise) is affecting the way we read news and media. We now do most of our reading while we’re sat on the sofa watching TV.

The survey looks at the reading trends culled from over 100 million articles saved by Read It Later users across all major web and mobile platforms. The data shows that while we’re presented with data throughout the day we choose to do our reading when we can concentrate in our downtime hours, and thanks to the mobile and tablet devices we tend to save that reading in non-work time.

iPhone Users

This is where it gets interesting. You’ll note four major spikes when most of the reading on an iPhone is done:

6am – Early morning, breakfast
9am – The morning commute, start of the work day
5pm – 6pm – End of the work day and the commute home
8pm – 10pm – Couch time, prime time, bed time

Read It Later calls these peaks “whitespace time” where whitespaces are the time between A and B. It’s the time on the subway or bus. It’s the time standing in line. It’s a spare moment.

As Read It Later says “It is during these moments between tasks and locations that people reach for their phone. These are perfect times to knock an item or two off of your reading list. By saving content for later, readers are able to consume content during the voids in their day without interrupting the day’s normal flow.”

iPad Users

The graph of when users are reading on the iPad shows two peaks a small peak at breakfast time, but with the biggest time for reading is the after dinner slot, when we’re all sat in front of the TV at home.

It also shows that iPhone and iPad users are not night-owls. There’s a drastic drop off at 11 PM as they all go to bed, and a and equally dramatic rise between 5 and 6 AM

Read It Later also looked at how we’re shifting our reading from the computer to more portable devices like the iPad. The graph of the number of articles read on a computer by iPad owners shows that aside from a quick lunch hour at their desk, iPad owners are no longer doing the majority of their reading on their computers. They are saving it for “personal prime time” – ie the 7-10PM PrimeTime TV slots, when they can relax comfortably.

What this also says is that we’re not only working like dogs during the day we’re also taking our work home with us and carrying on working at night as well.

Is this the norm? Is this you? are iPhone and iPad users all early risers?[ad name=”Google Text half banner advert “]