What’s the connection between reading books and the internet, aside from literacy? They’re such different things, I’m not clear on the connection between reading and the internet.
Prior to the internet, books were the only way humans consumed large amounts of textual information. Now, we have web pages, which 89% of people use, whereas books, which have never been more accessible, still linger at 76% usage.
One assumes of the 89% of people who use the Internet, 100% of them use web browsers, web sites, and thus read lots of textual information. That's as close to 100% penetration for a technology as you're gonna get, in my view. I wonder what percentage of Americans use toothbrushes!
I suppose there might be some subset of Internet users who exclusively use YouTube/Netflix (children, maybe?) That would be the only wrinkle in the comparison, IMO.
I don't think that follows. If you use Instagram, YouTube, Imgur, 9GAG, and such, you barely need to read any text. Same for Facebook, depending on the people you follow.
I am sure you mean newspapers and magazines. Books still are.