Although it seems kind of obvious, it appears that tablets are actually killing magazines and paper books, now according to a Gartner study. Analyst Carolina Milanesi from Gartner claims that in a new survey done by her firm it was revealed that over 50% of media tablet owners like to read news, magazines and books on their slates rather than paper.
So, one in 3 respondents use their media tablets to read a book and we compare that to the 13% for mobile PCs and 7% for mobile phones, that’s still a good figure. Of course, don’t expect paper to die out so soon, or so says another Gartner analyst, Meike Escherich, who claims that the success of the tablets won’t prompt paper to go down the drain too soon. Big publications have already gone down the digital road, ever since the iPad became popular. The same survey showed that the favourite activities on media tablets are checking email, with 81% of respondents, reading the news with 69% and checking the weather with 63%.
Gaming is also on the list with 60%. I must mention that the study was done at the end of 2011 in the US, UK and Australia to understand what the early adopters of media tablets are thinking. To perform the survey respondents had to fill in an online 7 day diary, which is a pretty tough task. It’s important to know that media tablets play a bigger role in the home, compared to PCs or mobile phones. The highest action rate is in the living room, with 87% of the users, the bedroom with 65% and kitchen with 47%.
So, how long till we live in a world where people use books in a 10 to 1 ratio compared to tablets, for reading?
