More than one-fifth of people in Taiwan did not read a single book last year as smartphones, tablets and computers take up most people's time, according to a survey.

Excluding those who read comic books, magazines or digital books, about 40.8 per cent of those surveyed said they read no print book in 2018, according to the survey on people's reading behaviour by the United Daily News's Vision Project.

According to the research, 1,556 respondents were surveyed from December 28, 2018 to January 3, 2019, Xinhua news agency reported.

Of those respondents who read no print books last year, about one-third of them said the last time they read a print book was one to three years ago. Another 20 per cent said their last book reading occurred more than 10 years ago.

About 20.6 per cent of respondents who read no books last year said they simply didn't like reading and 10.7 per cent said they had no such book-reading habit, further analysis by the survey found.

And 40 per cent said they had no time for reading or that reading took up too much time, it said.

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Among those who read print books, about one third spent one to three hours a week reading and 14 per cent spent three to five hours a week reading, 12 per cent spent more than nine hours a week reading, according to the survey. (IANS)