First: I wanna clarify this. I know that loads of people read like 100 books a year, or read all the time. I know these people exist. I’m asking about people that are like… average. An average american who just… reads. Doesn’t track everything or sets goals of like 100, or never stops reading… Anyway, I’ve been searching this up, and i find answers like 15-50, even 100. I find this highly unlikely, especially for average US citizens. Half the people i know don’t even pick up 5 books a year, let alone 15! I just don’t believe these stats. I read somewhere that people read 8 a month on average? That can’t be right for an average person. That’s like 2 books a week… I know people do read this much, but still… For an average person? So be real… how many books do people actually read a year?
You are confusing the significance of average and median. To illustrate, consider a sample of three people. If one reads 1 book, one reads 5, and one reads 50, the average person in that group has read 18.6 books. The median person has read 5 books.
In the same way, the average skews higher than the median for all Americans because the average is brought up by a relatively small number of people who read an enormous amount of books. So even though the median American only reads like 6 books a year (i.e. most Americans read 6 or fewer books), the average is brought up to something like 12-15 (depending on the survey) on behalf of a decent number of readers that are reading 40+ books a year.