Issue Focus

A recent report, '2023 Reading Culture Statistics,' conducted by the Korean Publishing and Reading Culture Research Center, reveals that 38.5% of South Korean adults, age 19 and over, engaged with webtoons last year, averaging 54.6 episodes per reader annually. The study involved 1,000 participants to examine reading habits across different publication formats, highlighting the significant popularity of webtoons, which ranked as the second most commonly consumed media after physical books.
The survey utilized a comprehensive definition of reading, accounting for both traditional and digital formats, including paper books, ebooks, audiobooks, web novels, and webtoons. The results showed that 85.4% of respondents engaged in some form of reading over the past year, revealing a broad spectrum of reading practices. Webtoons, in particular, emerged as a notable form of daily readership, with a reported engagement rate of 19.0%.
While this study's methods differ from those used in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism's '2023 National Reading Survey,' which detailed a lower adult reading rate of 43.0%, the findings underscore digital content's increasing influence, such as webtoons and ebooks. These shifts signal a transformation in reading preferences, with webtoons gaining traction as a preferred format among adults in South Korea.