Eight in 10 Spaniards prefer 'turning pages' to e-books, and 35% never read at all

According to a survey on reading habits by the Sociological Investigation Centre (CIS), a total of 79.7% still like 'turning pages' rather than reading off a screen.

In fact, two-thirds – 66.3% - say they have never read using an e-book, only 15.2% say they preferred digital over paper but just 11.1% called themselves 'habitual' e-book readers.

The research also shows that 35% of the population never reads for pleasure and only 29.3% do so daily.

About 16% read once or twice a week.

Main reasons for not reading were because they did not enjoy it or were not interested, in 42% of cases, whilst 23.2% cited lack of time to do so and 12.9% said they had health problems such as poor eyesight which prevented them from doing so.

More than six in 10 – 61.6% - said if they did read, it was for pleasure, but 12.8% did so to educate themselves.

Little information has been given about favourite genres of fiction – 23.6% like historical novels the best and 17.9% said they enjoyed 'a bit of everything' or fiction 'in general'.

Adventure stories appealed to 9%, whilst detective novels were the favourites in 7.6% of cases and 6% tend to opt for romantic fiction.

And although a third believe e-books will be the future of reading, 42% predict that the paper and digital format will continue to coexist.

A total of 16.5% believe the digital format will eventually all but phase out and the world will go back to turning pages.

In the past year, the average Spaniard who reads has bought 5.69 books and read 8.69.

Only half the population bought books in 2014, with the rest saying they 'never' bought them in any format.

As for newspapers, 41.1% of Spaniards read at least one every day, and 19.3% did so once or twice a week, but 15.5% say they never read the press at all.

Online newspapers were only preferred by 28.2%, whereas 63.9% prefer the press in paper format.

Even fewer read magazines – 53% said they 'never' did, whilst 16.1% do so once or twice week and 19.7% read them once a month.

Reading is the third-favourite pastime for Spaniards, with 61.7% saying they enjoyed it 'a lot', but was beaten by going to the cinema, in second place with 67.7%, and listening to music top in 73.4% of cases.

In practice, however, spare time and relaxation is spent either with family, watching TV or surfing the internet, with 77.9% saying they went online daily.

Friends, reading and sports came much further down the list.

But Spaniards appear to be happy with their pastimes – on a scale of 0 to 10, when asked how happy they were, a total of 72.2% placed themselves between 7 and 10.