More on Covid-19

If there’s one thing that people are consuming more of during the nationwide lockdown , it is newspapers. In these extraordinary times, as the need for reliable, verified information becomes more critical than ever before, people have chosen to spend much more time with their newspapers , a survey has found.On an average, they are now spending 22 minutes more with their newspaper every day, reading the paper for a good one hour , a survey by market research firm Avance Field & Brand Solutions has found. In the pre-lockdown days, the average time spent on a newspaper was 38 minutes.In fact, almost 40% of those surveyed said they read the paper for more than an hour now; earlier, less than half, only 16%, spent as much time.During the lockdown, even the numbers of those reading the paper for over 30 minutes has shot up to 72% from 42%.And, readers who spent less than 15 minutes on their newspaper fell from 14% pre-lockdown to a mere 3%.What’s more, 42% are reading the paper multiple times instead of in one go, devoting more time to each section.Clearly, going by the survey’s findings, the relationship between readers and newspapers has deepened and widened in these challenging times. “Newspapers are truly an essential service and continue to be the most credible source of information,” the survey says.