Contrary to popular belief, Britain may not be a nation of dumbed-down MP3-toting philistines who prefer computer games to the mind-expanding delights of a good book.

Instead, according to the latest research, people in the UK are reading more than they did a quarter of a century ago.

A team at the University of Manchester has found that, while Britons spent just three minutes a day on average reading a book in 1975, by 2000 this rose to seven minutes.

And when magazines and newspapers were taken into account, Britons were reading five minutes more every day in 2000, compared to their 1970s counterparts. Women in particular increased their page-turning time.

The new findings fly in the face of many people's assumptions about modern Britain.