by Alison Blankenship | Posted on April 29, 2020
The last month and a half has created its fair share of challenges as we all adjust to life during COVID-19, but with challenge comes opportunity. Americans are spending more time at home and free time, formerly a rare commodity, is now an abundant resource that many of us have no idea what to do with.
If it were up to us, everyone would spend a little more time reading. It’s a great way to learn something new and provides a healthy form of mental escape at a time when we all could use one. Knowing that a lot of people probably feel the same, we set out to see which Americans have been spending their quarantine time curled up with a good book. We broke out the results by state, and here’s a quick look at the top 10:
New York
District of Columbia
Oregon
Wyoming
Vermont
Massachusetts
Nebraska
Alaska
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Methodology
Figuring out which states have been reading the most during quarantine was pretty simple. As many of us look for things to do with our free time, we’ve turned to Google for inspiration. Search trends have shot through the roof for everything from home workouts to bread recipes, but we narrowed our focus on terms that would suggest an increased level of book purchases and reading. Leveraging data from Google Trends, we identified four of these terms that have all spiked in popularity since mid-March when states began implementing stay-at-home policies:
“free books”
“ebooks”
“books to read”
“best books”
Each state is ranked by Google Trends on a scale of 0-100 based on the popularity of the term compared to the rest of the country. For example, if one state receives a 70 and another receives a 35, that means that the term is searched twice as much in the first state.
Scores were recorded for each of the four terms above and averaged to identify which states have been spending the most time reading during quarantine. After all the number crunching was done, New York emerged as the top state.
Check out the table below to see where your state ranked. If you’ve been spending your free time reading as well, check out our great selection of books or browse by subject to find your next favorite.
Summary Stats
Rank- State- free books- ebooks- books to read- best books
1 New York 62 100 70 52
2 District of Columbia 39 33 100 100
3 Oregon 65 48 73 60
4 Wyoming 58 45 99 40
5 Vermont 100 41 47 52
6 Massachusetts 63 40 74 63
7 Nebraska 68 38 89 42
8 Alaska 75 76 58 28
9 Rhode Island 85 30 69 48
10 South Dakota 93 35 66 35
11 Iowa 76 37 69 49
12 Utah 70 43 67 49
13 Delaware 76 53 53 46
14 Kansas 78 37 63 49
15 New Hampshire 64 35 78 49
16 Maine 76 22 76 52
17 New Jersey 73 35 70 48
18 Idaho 68 39 70 47
19 Minnesota 60 48 67 48
20 Connecticut 67 40 67 48
21 Hawaii 57 45 71 45
22 Oklahoma 61 42 76 35
23 California 57 40 69 48
24 Washington 63 34 60 55
25 Michigan 65 32 69 44
26 Virginia 59 36 63 47
27 Colorado 59 35 56 55
28 Kentucky 62 40 69 33
29 Wisconsin 65 34 59 45
30 Arkansas 67 27 70 38
31 North Carolina 60 37 64 41
32 Missouri 63 38 58 41
33 South Carolina 58 44 59 38
34 Maryland 58 43 57 41
35 Illinois 51 31 68 44
36 Texas 62 29 66 37
37 Pennsylvania 60 32 59 41
38 Mississippi 68 35 57 30
39 Alabama 59 33 65 32
40 Nevada 60 20 71 36
41 Tennessee 60 24 63 40
42 Ohio 50 34 66 37
43 Georgia 55 32 61 36
44 West Virginia 55 35 62 31
45 Arizona 56 31 55 41
46 New Mexico 60 35 47 37
47 Montana 54 16 64 43
48 Indiana 60 25 52 40
49 Florida 56 32 54 35
50 North Dakota 53 26 27 61
51 Louisiana 51 34 50 30
About the author
Alison Blankenship
Senior Marketing Manager
I graduated Cum Laude from The Ohio State University (Go Bucks!) with degrees in Marketing and Communications. I’ve been working in the textbook business for over 10 years, and my work has been featured by College Confidential, Mercy College of Health Sciences, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania Tribune, Montana Technological University, and other organizations.
I’m an obsessive lover of dachshunds and a passionate reader of books. I’m an avid Pinner and poster, and I’m all over our Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram and Pinterest.