Italians read. Much more than the usual story about the presumed death of books suggests. According to research commissioned by Amazon Kindle and conducted by OnePoll on 2,000 adults in Italy between February and March 2026The 97% of Italians read at least once a week and the 53% do it every day. Numbers that tell of a still very strong bond with reading, but also of a silent transformation: it is not the desire to read that has entered into crisis, it is the ability to do so without interruptions.
In a time marked by notifications, tiredness, mental fragmentation and days that never seem to really allow a full break, reading resists, but changes shape. It becomes shorter, more intermittent, more exposed to the risk of losing the thread. The book remains a refuge, but more and more often it is a disturbed refuge.
Six minutes lost every session: the invisible cost of distractions
The most interesting data that emerged from the survey concerns the quality of time dedicated to books. Each reading session involves on average six minutes wasted rereading or reworking the textespecially because of distractions, interruptions and visual fatigue. Considering an average of four sessions per week, the wasted time comes to approx 22 hours a year.
It’s not just about minutes taken away from reading. It is something more subtle: the moment in which the mind leaves the page, goes back, tries to reconstruct a sentence, a passage, an emotion that has already been interrupted. Reading, which should be immersion, becomes recovery. The pleasure of the book turns into a small resistance exercise.
Almost two-thirds of readersThe 63%in fact, declare that they need to reread some passages to fully understand them. More than half, the 53%he indicates precisely distractions and interruptions as the root cause of the loss of quality of the reading experience.
When reading becomes an effort
The consequence is not just slower reading. It’s a more fragile read. Among those who often find themselves having to reread, one in five states that this significantly lengthens the time, while a quarter of readers says he abandoned books he was enjoying because continuing required too much effort.
This is where one of the most contemporary contradictions emerges: we don’t stop reading because books are no longer interesting, but because the context makes it increasingly difficult to stay inside a story, an essay, a long thought. Books left half-finished thus become a small private frustration, a physical or digital pile of suspended intentions.
Abandonment does not necessarily arise from boredom. Sometimes it comes from fatigue. From the feeling that picking up that book, after days or weeks of interruption, means having to mentally start from scratch.
The reading is broken into shorter moments
Habits are therefore changing. Long continuous sessions are increasingly accompanied by short moments spread throughout the day. Almost half of the readers, the 49%avoid reading when tired or stressed. The 40% choose dedicated moments to concentrate better. The 18% breaks your reading into shorter sessions.
It is a transformation that speaks well of the present: reading remains a desired gesture, but it must find space between commitments, screens, notifications, work, commuting, too little sleep and reduced attention. It is no longer just a question of available time. It’s a question of mental energy.
For this reason, there is growing interest in tools capable of adapting the reading experience to personal rhythms. Already today the11% of readers use personalized viewing methods, a sign that digital reading is no longer perceived only as an alternative to paper books, but as a modular environment, capable of accompanying different habits.
Gen Z wants more flexible reading
The need for personalization is especially evident among younger readers. Between the Gen ZThe 59% expresses frustration when reading tools do not adapt to his way of reading, while the 69% finds it difficult to maintain continuity between distractions and daily commitments.
It is a fact that overturns an overly simple narrative about young people and books. The problem is not necessarily disinterest. It’s the friction between the desire to read and an everyday ecosystem designed to disrupt. Reading, to remain central, must become more accessible, more elastic, more compatible with lives that rarely allow long empty spaces.
When this happens, the impact is immediate: among those who use personalization features, the 39% perceives reading as less tiring, the 31% finds it more pleasant and the 13% reads more frequently.
Kindle and the promise of noise-free reading
It is into this scenario that Kindle fits in, created with the aim of making reading easier to integrate into daily life. The lightweight design, long battery life and the ability to carry an entire library with you respond precisely to one of the new needs of readers: not having to plan in advance when and what to read.
But the most relevant point today is perhaps the distraction-free environment. In a world where every device seems to demand attention, Kindle offers a more focused experience, built around the page. Adjustable text and lighting help reduce eye strain, while features like word definitions, highlights and progress indicators accompany your reading and help you keep pace.
The issue, therefore, is not just technological. It’s cultural. Contemporary reading needs new spaces of continuity. Of tools that don’t add noise, but reduce it. Of devices that do not transform the book into yet another app, but that try to give it back its most precious function: creating a parenthesis.
Italians still read. The point now is to be able to read better. With fewer interruptions, less effort, less feeling of always having to chase the lost thread. Because getting to the last page today is no longer just a question of time. It almost became a small act of resistance.
