A recent survey has revealed the extra time spent isolated at home during the coronavirus pandemic has led Japanese teens to up their intake of books.
In the Nippon Foundation survey, 24.9% of the 1,000 respondents aged between 17 and 19 said they read more now than they did before the pandemic and 6.0% said they read less.
A total of 69.1% said their reading habits did not change during the public health crisis.
Some 59.7% said they enjoy reading while 12.8% said otherwise, according to the online poll carried out from Sept. 29 through Oct. 5.
Asked how many books they read per month, 44.8% replied they read one or two, and 32.7% said they do not read at all, with 6.8% saying they read more than seven books every month.
Asked how they feel about the general deterioration of reading comprehension among young people, 65.4% think it is "unfavorable," while some 38.2% believe they fall into the category of having such low reading comprehension.