These States are Using Quarantine Time to Read

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 cheap textbooks 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

Sources:

Google Trends. “Explore What the World is Searching.” trends.google.com/trends/. 22 April 2020.

TextbookRush Blog

These States are Using Quarantine Time to Read

Methodology

Summary Stats

Sources:

About the author

Methodology

Summary Stats

Sources:

About the author

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