Or so a study of 600 Americans claims. When given a newspaper article, the average American will read 75% of it if it is on a website. This isn't too bad, especially when compared to the 62% of an article in the average reliable newspaper (like The Boston Globe) the average American will read. The same American will read about 57% of an article published in a tabloid-style newspaper, such as The Weekly World News. These numbers are surprising, especially considering how much effort people will put into putting a news story in print. However, if you consider how much longer the average newspaper article is, maybe newspaper-readers do have longer attention spans after all.