{
  "study_id": "us-reading-days",
  "generated_at_utc": "2026-10-28T17:32:54.636531+00:00",
  "sources": [
    {
      "name": "Bone et al., iScience (2025): The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey",
      "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12496190/",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "Prior peer-reviewed analysis of 2003–2023 reading participation. This page does not claim first discovery of declining participation."
    },
    {
      "name": "BLS ATUS 2015 microdata and documentation",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/data/datafiles_2015.htm",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "Official Respondent, Activity, Activity Summary and replicate-weight files; public microdata. Reading code checked against 2015 lexicon."
    },
    {
      "name": "BLS ATUS 2025 microdata and documentation",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/data/datafiles-2025.htm",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "Official 2025 public-use data, released June 2026; reading code checked against 2025 lexicon."
    },
    {
      "name": "ATUS User’s Guide, September 2026",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/atususersguide.pdf",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "Universe, primary-activity limitations, weighting and 160-replicate variance method, chapter 7."
    },
    {
      "name": "BLS: Federal Government Shutdown and 2025 ATUS",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/tus/notices/2026/october2025shutdown.htm",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "No diaries September 30–November 11; weighting and unquantifiable shutdown effects."
    },
    {
      "name": "BLS linking and copyright information",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/bls/linksite.htm",
      "accessed": "2026-10-28",
      "note": "Source attribution and official material reuse information; independent analysis implies no endorsement."
    }
  ],
  "source_files": [
    {
      "file": "atusact-2025.zip",
      "bytes": 1882541,
      "sha256": "664314e9f0c7373534f10bb1450a1dfc2b50d04c7932ecfea090ff4a1c65bca3"
    },
    {
      "file": "atusact_2015.zip",
      "bytes": 16443312,
      "sha256": "b5643aa84fd9f7b3f7c55847fc30215d6bd6e7e991ef1b5c69ca90d4929f5307"
    },
    {
      "file": "atusintcodebk25.pdf",
      "bytes": 466369,
      "sha256": "c7a9be1d5712733e847f4733ba408aeee790695d7d8c9066d27e4783a80dc6ac"
    },
    {
      "file": "atusresp-2025.zip",
      "bytes": 429058,
      "sha256": "77566d2864f1b96412a46ceeee9ea53709bc191b092f3573af04c17b2d409873"
    },
    {
      "file": "atusresp_2015.zip",
      "bytes": 879039,
      "sha256": "1db8c45e4fbcfe71f67dca960079607e6a238a5b07e3354f0a584a3e165d3a9e"
    },
    {
      "file": "atussum-2025.zip",
      "bytes": 383733,
      "sha256": "a45c4edf1b7e0cd5ecf622bc5a57e4fe6fe27281add92b26c29605cfac193359"
    },
    {
      "file": "atussum_2015.zip",
      "bytes": 738851,
      "sha256": "67f6d774cf3483d0e7a245d333149fe7179901c7638394d0c8ddb1644f4393a8"
    },
    {
      "file": "atususersguide.pdf",
      "bytes": 1111540,
      "sha256": "3d06f9f8285cd65325b7d460bb6021c27f31871926df5a6cd68988edebe7c90e"
    },
    {
      "file": "atuswgts-2025.zip",
      "bytes": 7534316,
      "sha256": "f7c024b2b2693e74b99d65a66e499341f888a59b9495e4fb40785281cee0fcd2"
    },
    {
      "file": "atuswgts_2015.zip",
      "bytes": 36159032,
      "sha256": "b15c8c3dd80727864a5fedf30645c5f2bdbb7ffd467dedda29ec99918796f780"
    },
    {
      "file": "lexiconnoex2015.pdf",
      "bytes": 781773,
      "sha256": "c3a5152920df9e21ed9ccc3422bc0714701a65adfee3e5a9b2e8940a2b311802"
    },
    {
      "file": "lexiconnoex2025.pdf",
      "bytes": 254911,
      "sha256": "b0a93e6b88daccf4344d4312f475a43ce3125f4f67d45ae43778ee5d57d39514"
    }
  ],
  "methodology": [
    "Endpoint comparison: calendar years 2015 and 2025; all respondents in the official annual ATUS Respondent files. The target universe is the US civilian noninstitutionalized population aged 15+.",
    "Link Respondent, Activity, Activity Summary and replicate-weight files by TUCASEID, preserving identifiers as strings. Check one respondent per ID, valid joins and exactly 1,440 recorded activity minutes per diary. The two samples contain 10,905 and 6,146 respondents.",
    "Select TRCODE 120312, reading for personal interest. Sum TUACTDUR24 per person and compute the maximum single reported activity duration. Verify every person’s summed minutes against the official Activity Summary t120312 column. Do not combine separate short activities into a qualifying episode.",
    "Calculate weighted means and indicator percentages using TUFINLWGT. People without a qualifying reading activity receive zero for daily participation/duration; the conditional duration estimate uses only those who read that day.",
    "Recompute each estimate with FINLWGT001 through FINLWGT160. Variance equals 4/160 times the sum of squared deviations from the full-weight estimate, following the ATUS guide. Standard error is its square root; a 95% interval is estimate ±1.96 standard errors.",
    "For 2015–2025 differences, combine independent endpoint variances by addition. The resulting intervals address sampling uncertainty only. Broad age/sex/employment groups use TEAGE, TESEX and TELFS; employment codes 1 and 2 are employed. No causal model, seasonal adjustment or demographic standardization is applied.",
    "Round published values to one decimal; retain full precision, unweighted event counts, standard errors and confidence limits in the downloadable aggregate CSVs. Source microdata are linked, not redistributed as part of this page."
  ],
  "limitations": [
    "Two years are endpoints, not a continuous trend or a panel following the same people. The underlying surveys are independent cross-sections.",
    "The 2025 shutdown removed September 30–November 11 diaries. Official weighting covers missing days, but BLS cannot quantify the effect on estimates. Sampling confidence intervals do not measure that possible bias.",
    "A reported activity episode is not verified uninterrupted attention. Reading includes more than books; the study cannot identify genres, reading speed, book completion, literacy or sales.",
    "The survey generally captures primary activities, so simultaneous reading or audiobook listening may be missed. Recall, coding error and nonresponse remain possible.",
    "Age, sex and employment groups are unadjusted. The data cannot establish why differences exist or predict readership of any author’s work.",
    "No state estimates or international rankings are produced; this study’s universe is the United States aged 15+, including respondents under 18.",
    "This is Alisson Bento’s independent secondary analysis of public BLS data, not a new survey, a BLS publication or a claim of official agency endorsement."
  ],
  "audit": [
    {
      "year": 2015,
      "respondents": 10905,
      "activities": 214429,
      "reading_activities": 3605,
      "reading_respondents": 2485,
      "all_diaries_1440_minutes": true,
      "reading_code": 120312,
      "unique_respondents": true,
      "replicate_count": 160
    },
    {
      "year": 2025,
      "respondents": 6146,
      "activities": 114151,
      "reading_activities": 1738,
      "reading_respondents": 1227,
      "all_diaries_1440_minutes": true,
      "reading_code": 120312,
      "unique_respondents": true,
      "replicate_count": 160
    }
  ],
  "download_instructions": "Download official annual data ZIP files from linked BLS pages, extract .dat files to source/atus2015 and source/atus2025, then run analysis.py. No participant microdata are bundled."
}