A recent poll asked 10,000 US and Canadian TikTok users between the ages of 18 and 45 if they are reading more because of BookTok, the bookish community on the social media platform. BookTok is widely believed to have driven a big bump in book sales and increased the popularity of reading in general.
The survey was done in May 2023, and it found that 48% of TikTok users in The United States and 53% of Canadian users reported reading more because of the influence of BookTok.
Users didn’t just report reading more because of BookTok: they said they were reading significantly more. USA respondents averaged reporting reading 60% more, while Canadians said they read 58% more. 62% of U.S. American and 70% of Canadian users said they have read a book based on a TikTok recommendation.
States and provinces differed in how much they reported BookTok affecting their reading. Michigan respondents said they read 31% more because of its influence, while Nebraska reported reading 70% more. New Brunswick users said 25%, while Saskatchewan users reported a 63% increase on average.
Those lower numbers could reflect a population immune to BookTok’s charms — or perhaps those users were already power readers!