The declaration of the state of alarm last March to stop coronavirus spread led to the lockdown of the population. In this context, the ERI-Reading (made up of researchers from the Universitat de València and from the University of Salamanca, and in collaboration with the University of Padua, Italy) launched a research in order to evaluate the reading habits of the population during quarantine. 

Ladislao Salmerón, full professor at the Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the Faculty of Psychology and coordinator of the ERI-Reading of the UV, explains that the results of almost 4,800 participants indicate that there was a general increase in reading time during the first two weeks of lockdown. 

Results were studied by using Linear Mixed Models and the database was weighted by gender and age to favour the generalization of the results. With regard to the reading activities, they analysed: news reading (newspapers, magazines, websites, Twitter, etc.), leisure reading (novels, comics, magazines, blogs, etc.), social reading (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.) and work-wise or study-wise reading (reports, websites, documents, etc.). 

The research reveals that, during the first four weeks of lockdown, Spaniards increased the time they spent reading from 4 hours and 35 minutes on the day before lockdown to around 5 h 45 min/day.

In addition, leisure reading increased during the first two weeks, ranging from 56 min/day before quarantine to 1h 14 min/day in the first and second weeks to increase in the third and fourth weeks up to 1h 21 min/day. Per gender, the increase was greater among women, while per age leisure reading increased among the youngest ones. 

As for news reading, the daily 55 minutes that people surveyed spent reading pieces of news before lockdown turned into 1h 11 min/day in the first and second weeks of lockdown. And, although news reading decreased up to 1h 4 min/day during the third and fourth weeks, the level continued being higher than the one of the period previous to the lockdown. Per gender, increase was greater among women. Per age, increase was greater among the youngest ones. However, they were also the ones who read less news before lockdown and, later, in the 3rd and 4th weeks, they reached a time similar to the one of the pre-lockdown. Adults, again, spent more hours than usual reading news in the 3rd and 4th weeks. 

Social reading via social networks increased as well. People surveyed stated that they had increased their social reading from 1h 3 min/day before the lockdown to 1h 31 min/day during the first and second weeks, an increase that remained stable in the 3rd and 4th weeks of lockdown (1h 28 min/day). Per gender, increase was greater among women and it was similar among the several age groups. 

Finally, reading for study or work remained stable. Before lockdown, people surveyed stated that they had spent 1h 41 min/day reading, while they spent 1h 50 min/day reading for study or work during the first four weeks of lockdown. Per gender, increase was greater among men and, regarding the age, increase was much greater among the youngest ones. 

In terms of the favourite type of reading format (paper versus digital one) during lockdown, reading in digital format was on the same level at all age ranges since all of them spent a similar time on leisure reading in digital format. 

'The most interesting thing starts in the third week of lockdown when, depending on its typology, reading took different paths", Ladislao Salmerón specifies. "Novels reading continued increasing, while news reading decreased to pre-lockdown levels", he adds. 

In conclusion, Ladislao Salmerón asserts that adults, both Spanish and Italian, 'changed their reading habits during quarantine in an adaptive way and this allowed to boost the emotional benefits associated with leisure reading".