Should listening to audiobooks really be considered as ‘reading’ ?

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

At the risk of sounding like a reading snob, I wanna start this discussion. Growing up, reading from paperbacks(and later kindles) really helped develop concentration, vocabulary and self discipline for me. It enabled me to get confident enough to write for myself and also helped me ace all my literature exams :P. I also believe that it’s far more immersive when you read something for yourself and really get under the skin of the characters and visualise the world far more clearly then listening to it ,which basically amounts to watching YouTube videos/podcasts. 

i genuinely believe that the replacement of actual reading with quick and easy substitutes like listening to audiobooks while also multitasking is taking away from the richness of book reading and developing deeper cognitive skills, another by product of shorter attention spans and quicker desires for gratification that plagues the current generation. What are your thoughts ? Do you wanna encourage audio books over old fashioned reading for your family and friends in this chat GPT era world(which further discourages writing) ? And please don’t use the excuse of time constraints….one can always find time by cutting other superfluous activities on the weekend. 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[polishgenius]

Depends what you mean. Obviously reading the act is a specific thing and if you are listening to an audiobook you are not doing it, but if you listen to an audiobook all the way to the end there is no qualitative difference to having read it. 

 

 

People should take in books in whatever manner is best for them. I for one cannot manage audiobooks at all, it's impossible for me to concentrate on audio only for that long. By the logic you're bringing here, I should therefore actually only listen to audiobooks because reading is easy for me and I am therefore not learning attention span and concentration by doing it. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

20 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Depends what you mean. Obviously reading the act is a specific thing and if you are listening to an audiobook you are not doing it, but if you listen to an audiobook all the way to the end there is no qualitative difference to having read it. 

 

 

People should take in books in whatever manner is best for them. I for one cannot manage audiobooks at all, it's impossible for me to concentrate on audio only for that long. By the logic you're bringing here, I should therefore actually only listen to audiobooks because reading is easy for me and I am therefore not learning attention span and concentration by doing it. 

I think the qualitative difference comes in how it helps you develop your own vocabulary and regular  reading does make it easy to grasp new information from books faster. I agree with your point  that for some folks audiobooks may indeed be harder, it’s for me as well. 

[IlyaP]

Any medium that gets people engaging with content and thus improving their literacy, comprehension, and lexicon, and most importantly, enjoying themselves is all that matters. 

And yes, you are a snob. Neil Gaiman agrees with me on this, and I'll side with him any day over your wannabe-edgelord shtick. 

https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/05/looking-or-listening.asp?m=1

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I think the qualitative difference comes in how it helps you develop your own vocabulary and regular  reading does make it easy to grasp new information from books faster.

 

Sure, regular reading makes you better at reading. Regular listening to audiobooks makes you better at listening to audiobooks. The point is, though, that one or the other isn't an inherently better way to take in information, and certainly not to improve vocabularly etc. If you're taking in the information, you're taking in the information. Insisting that it must come in through the eyes is just cutting out people who prefer it another way. 

[IlyaP]

And it clearly did wonders for his spelling. Clearly. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

45 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Sure, regular reading makes you better at reading. Regular listening to audiobooks makes you better at listening to audiobooks. The point is, though, that one or the other isn't an inherently better way to take in information, and certainly not to improve vocabularly etc. If you're taking in the information, you're taking in the information. Insisting that it must come in through the eyes is just cutting out people who prefer it another way. 

I understand but don’t you feel today’s generation is using audiobooks like podcasts and on some level at-least,are missing out on the authentic reading experience ? I know I’d want my future kids to read books as a preference, (not including reading to them as toddlers at night time etc) I also feel reading really does encourage writing and future budding authors waay more than audiobooks will…Also impacts re-reading and analysis. 
 

All other things being constant, which route would you teach your kids first ? Audio or actual paperbacks ? If you’re visually impaired, obviously audiobooks is the way to go but if you have both options available, I do think reading has more inherent value. Audiobooks are like watching the movie version of it. For some professions like Law, reading at a young age does provide more value as well. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

At the risk of sounding like a reading snob, I wanna start this discussion. Growing up, reading from paperbacks(and later kindles) really helped develop concentration, vocabulary and self discipline for me. It enabled me to get confident enough to write for myself and also helped me ace all my literature exams :P. I also believe that it’s far more immersive when you read something for yourself and really get under the skin of the characters and visualise the world far more clearly then listening to it ,which basically amounts to watching YouTube videos/podcasts. 

i genuinely believe that the replacement of actual reading with quick and easy substitutes like listening to audiobooks while also multitasking is taking away from the richness of book reading and developing deeper cognitive skills, another by product of shorter attention spans and quicker desires for gratification that plagues the current generation. What are your thoughts ? Do you wanna encourage audio books over old fashioned reading for your family and friends in this chat GPT era world(which further discourages writing) ? And please don’t use the excuse of time constraints….one can always find time by cutting other superfluous activities on the weekend. 

 

 

Yes.  Or should the blind listening to audiobooks not count as having read the book?

[kairparavel]

I'm so tired of this gatekeeping. I read for work. I read for enjoyment. I listen to audiobooks for a more immersive experience. I couldn't get through the first Cromwell book until I switched to audio. Same with World War Z. And only reading words doesn't help with things like pronunciation UNTIL YOU HEAR IT. Case in point, I had no idea how Ozymandias was supposed to sound like until someone spoke it.

Many cultures have rich oration and storytelling traditions that precede the written word, which you are basically discounting. You're also forgetting that education is a combination of text AND lecture. 

[polishgenius]

7 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I understand but don’t you feel today’s generation is using audiobooks like podcasts and on some level at-least,are missing out on the authentic reading experience ?

 

No.

 

7 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

All other things being constant, which route would you teach your kids first ?

 

This is a meaningless question. It's not a comparable thing. If I have kids I'm teaching them to read because it's a necessary life skill that doesn't come automatically but they'll already have learned to, like, listen by then. But I'm not gonna flip  out if at some point they decide their leisure reading is better taken in via audiobook. 

 

9 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Audiobooks are like watching the movie version of it.

 

I mean, this is just fundamentally not true. You're making it up. An audiobook is just the book, read out. It's the same product delivered via a different method. It is not an adaptation. 

 

11 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

For some professions like Law, reading at a young age does provide more value as well. 

 

Again, this is a different argument. 'Kids should learn to read' and 'people shouldn't listen to audiobooks' are two completely unrelated premises. Very little to do with one another. Like, sure, if you don't learn to read when you're young you're more likely to want to listen to audiobooks, but that isn't really the phenomenon that is happening. 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

I'm so tired of this gatekeeping. I read for work. I read for enjoyment. I listen to audiobooks for a more immersive experience. I couldn't get through the first Cromwell book until I switched to audio. Same with World War Z. And only reading words doesn't help with things like pronunciation UNTIL YOU HEAR IT. Case in point, I had no idea how Ozymandias was supposed to sound like until someone spoke it.

Many cultures have rich oration and storytelling traditions that precede the written word, which you are basically discounting. You're also forgetting that education is a combination of text AND lecture. 

I’ll read a book and listen to it on audiobook.  I get different things from the work each time.  All of value.  Listening to an audiobook is absolutely “reading”.

[Jaxom 1974]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’ll read a book and listen to it on audiobook.  I get different things from the work each time.  All of value.  Listening to an audiobook is absolutely “reading”.

Oh absolutely.  I admit I almost never listen to a book I haven't already read. Listening to something I've read at least once just brings out so much more of the experience. 

[Underfoot]

What's wrong with podcasts?

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

 

53 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

I'm so tired of this gatekeeping. I read for work. I read for enjoyment. I listen to audiobooks for a more immersive experience. I couldn't get through the first Cromwell book until I switched to audio. Same with World War Z. And only reading words doesn't help with things like pronunciation UNTIL YOU HEAR IT. Case in point, I had no idea how Ozymandias was supposed to sound like until someone spoke it.

Many cultures have rich oration and storytelling traditions that precede the written word, which you are basically discounting. You're also forgetting that education is a combination of text AND lecture. 

Guys I’m not berating anyone for choosing audiobooks over visual reading, I just wanted to have a debate about it, because to me it feels like cheating, and doesn’t sufficiently stimulate my mind. Also for long and complex books,I really can’t fathom how people are able to retain information just through audiobooks. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

35 minutes ago, Underfoot said:

What's wrong with podcasts?

Nothing at all, I listen to them as well. I just don’t consider them to be reading. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

Guys I’m not berating anyone for choosing audiobooks over visual reading, I just wanted to have a debate about it, because to me it feels like cheating, and doesn’t sufficiently stimulate my mind. Also for long and complex books,I really can’t fathom how people are able to retain information just through audiobooks. 

Read a book then listen to the same book and get back to us.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Nothing at all, I listen to them as well. I just don’t consider them to be reading. 

Podcasts aren’t reading any more than a radio show is reading.  However, audiobooks are reading.

[polishgenius]

29 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Guys I’m not berating anyone for choosing audiobooks over visual reading,

 

26 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

because to me it feels like cheating,

 

in the same sentence. 

 

Also, in the original post:

 

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

quick and easy substitutes

 

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

quicker desires for gratification that plagues the current generation.

 

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

And please don’t use the excuse

 

You absolutely were berating people. 

[IlyaP]

Even a cursory glance at the threads here would reveal that numerous members here provide literate, detailed, and insightful analyses of books they'd...listened to on Audible.

Imagine being so insensitive and oblivious, and reading the room so badly that you'd come to this forum, and then blithely suggest audiobook readers were somehow cutting corners and not *really* reading - an act (viz. reading) that puts us into different shoes, contexts, and worlds, to help us improve and broaden our ways of umderstanding the world and show more empathy. 

To momentarily appropriate Billy Madison for this context: "What you've posted is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent comments were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this forum is now dumber for having read them. If this were an essay from one of my students I would fail you, and may the gods have mercy on your smoking husk of a soul."

Edited July 23, 2023 by IlyaP

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Oh fuck off with your gatekeeping bullshit. 

 

19 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Even a cursory glance at the threads here would reveal that numerous members here provide literate, detailed, and insightful analyses of books they'd...listened to on Audible.

Imagine being so insensitive and oblivious, and reading the room so badly that you'd come to this forum, and then blithely suggest audiobook readers were somehow cutting corners and not *really* reading - an act (viz. reading) that puts us into different shoes, contexts, and worlds, to help us improve and broaden our ways of umderstanding the world and show more empathy. 

To momentarily appropriate Billy Madison for this context: "What you've posted is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent comments were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this forum is now dumber for having read them. If this were an essay from one of my students I would fail you, and may the gods have mercy on your smoking husk of a soul."

 

4 hours ago, IlyaP said:

And it clearly did wonders for his spelling. Clearly.