RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Impact of COVID-19 Confinement on Reading Behavior
Mahmoud A. Alomari1, Omar F. Khabour2, Karem H. Alzoubi3, 4, *, Aseel Aburub5
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2023Volume: 19
E-location ID: e174501792304260
Publisher ID: e174501792304260
DOI: 10.2174/17450179-v19-e230505-2022-42
Article History:
Received Date: 04/09/2022Revision Received Date: 28/02/2023
Acceptance Date: 06/04/2023
Electronic publication date: 05/06/2023
Collection year: 2023
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic was detrimental to lifestyle and behavior. In this investigation, changes in reading habits during the pandemic were examined.
Methods:
The study is cross-sectional and survey-based. 1844 individuals completed an online survey about sociodemographic and reading habits during COVID-19. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between the study variables.
Results:
Most of the participants were active readers (71.5%-83.2%). Fewer (13.8-18.0%) reported a decrease in reading, while about half reported a no change, and 1/3rd reported an increase. Changes in reading habits were related to age, education, job type, and income.
Conclusion:
About half of the participants during the pandemic reported a change in reading habits. Interventions to further enhance reading among people during the pandemic might help ameliorate the negative impacts of the pandemic.
