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

[Zorral]

I have read thousands and thousands of books in my life time, of all kinds.  I continue to read them.

I love audio books because I can continue to engage with books -- READING, because by golly that is what the reader is doing -- READING -- while doing the sorts of things that take forever and take away from reading time, such as yesterday, the two and a half hours from putting on the water to boil for the potatoes and the eggs to getting the completed enormous bowels of the salad into the refrigerator.  I listened to Lindsay Davis's penultimate entry into her long Didius Falco series.  There was nothing more I'd have gotten from holding a book in my hands and NOT making potato salad than from making potato salad while listening to someone else read it.

Every night before lights out, in bed, Partner and I read aloud to each other and we've done this for decades. We've been able to read together a wonderful list of wonderful books this way, contributing in many ways to our ever-growing togetherness.

Demanding a discussion about whether or not audio books are a worthy entry into the activities we all call 'reading' -- which includes reading to children, reading in a  book club and writers' groups, authors doing readings from their books on promo tours and in reading series at book stores and libraries is pointless and downright silly.

BTW, the poster might like to learn that way back, like maybe the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., poets and other literates were deeply concerned and anxious that this new fangled thing of writing their poetry on papyrus was going to destroy the ability to truly create beautiful work, and that anybody could read it would also destroy everybody's appreciation of beauty and their MEMORIES.  The only proper way to understand and learn was to HEAR and REMEMBER, not read.  You know, like now google etc. have made our memories go to hell.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Zorral

[IlyaP]

18 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

 

 

 

Go back to Twitter, where trolls like you belong. 

[Zorral]

It necessary to add that any professional writer worth reading, reads aloud every draft of what she writes, both to herself and, hopefully to any and all of her friends and relatives who have the skill and patience to listen, as well as to read, over and over the material.  This is the only method to ensure one's writing is easy and comprehensible to read READ.  Yes, writing well is hard and has many steps to it, and reading it aloud during composition and editing are among those many difficult, time-consuming and essential parts.

[Liffguard]

OP, I think your post is riling people up because it fundamentally misunderstands why many people read. Your argument comes across as anti-art. You talk about self-discipline, life skills, developing concentration etc. People can get these things from reading, but they're not the basic reason that most people make and consume art.

I don't read out of some sense of moral obligation or self improvement. I read because it brings me joy and allows me to experience different aspects of human emotion or aesthetics. Or sometimes it's just casual entertainment and that's fine too.

Sometimes an audiobook enhances those experiences, like listening to a story around a campfire, or when your parents would read you a story in bed, or listening to a friend tell a long joke.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I’m not saying audiobooks and book reading shouldn’t co exist, my fear is that in today’s increasingly digital world, it’s being completely eroded by audiobooks and podcasts because people are getting increasingly lazy. That’s it really. It’s becoming a zero sum game.And you guys can say what you want but I feel we really will lose something of inherent value if people replace book reading completely by the convenience and ease of audiobooks.It just doesn’t stimulate you on the same intellectual and creative level as reading an actual book quietly.  
 

As a guy in his mid 20s , it’s disheartening to see that on all the dates I’ve gone on, almost all the women prefer listening to podcasts or watching shows then ever reading an actual book. And I do think audio books contribute to this apathy.  
 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

2 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

OP, I think your post is riling people up because it fundamentally misunderstands why many people read. Your argument comes across as anti-art. You talk about self-discipline, life skills, developing concentration etc. People can get these things from reading, but they're not the basic reason that most people make and consume art.

I don't read out of some sense of moral obligation or self improvement. I read because it brings me joy and allows me to experience different aspects of human emotion or aesthetics. Or sometimes it's just casual entertainment and that's fine too.

Sometimes an audiobook enhances those experiences, like listening to a story around a campfire, or when your parents would read you a story in bed, or listening to a friend tell a long joke.

Which is perfectly fine, I also have fond bedtime memories of getting read.I also enjoyed reading aloud in classrooms.

I just don’t want one to dominate the other and there should be a clear distinction between actual reading which is proactive to what’s essentially passive listening to a story. Enjoy both experiences I guess but recognise that one of these does require a bit more effort which is ultimately far more rewarding to oneself. 

[polishgenius]

7 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

That’s it really. It’s becoming a zero sum game.

 

Is it though? Where's your evidence? Because while there isn't much direct data or studies out there as far as I can see, what I did find suggests that audiobooks are in large part being taken up by people who would not otherwise be reading much at all. And date from last year for the UK says that print books still sell far more than audiobooks - out of 348mil books sold in the country, 322 were either print or ebook. So your worry about audiobooks taking over print books is just unfounded. It's nowhere even close. 

 

14 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

As a guy in his mid 20s , it’s disheartening to see that on all the dates I’ve gone on, almost all the women prefer listening to podcasts or watching shows then ever reading an actual book.  

 

Eww. So it's the women that are letting you down. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Enjoy both experiences I guess but recognise that one of these does require a bit more effort which is ultimately far more rewarding to oneself. 

 

Okay, but if audiobooks require more effort and are therefore more rewarding, why are you so against them?

[Zorral]

27 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I’m not saying audiobooks and book reading shouldn’t co exist, my fear is that in today’s increasingly digital world, it’s being completely eroded by audiobooks and podcasts because people are getting increasingly lazy. That’s it really. It’s becoming a zero sum game.And you guys can say what you want but I feel we really will lose something of inherent value if people replace book reading completely by the convenience and ease of audiobooks.It just doesn’t stimulate you on the same intellectual and creative level as reading an actual book quietly.  
 

As a guy in his mid 20s , it’s disheartening to see that on all the dates I’ve gone on, almost all the women prefer listening to podcasts or watching shows then ever reading an actual book. And I do think audio books contribute to this apathy.  
 

Long before audio books most people preferred to listen to the radio, and then to watch tv, instead of read a book.  Now they prefer to play video games and watch streamer channels.

Sheesh, the entire history of reading begins with WRITING,  The entire history of writing and reading makes this whole argument irrelevant to anything.

With the invention of the first typewriter the concern trolls howled immediately that this machine allowed anybody to write anything and that was the end of literacy and art.  Before that they howled about the invention of the printing press.  Before that about the developing of writing and alphabets.

So we are now concerned that chatAI is ending writing too because anybody can do anything.  Before that we said it about electric typewriters, then about the first word processors, then about personal computers and then, you know fones -- which is probably how most people listen to podcasts and books -- and tweets destroy the capacity to read and write.  So poster better get rid of his fone and laptop and tablet, etc.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Zorral

[IlyaP]

18 minutes ago, Zorral said:

So poster better get rid of his fone and laptop and tablet, etc.

He snobbishly "worries" about people not reading, yet his posts are *littered* with formatting errors and typos, and when he can't be arsed to respond, his posts include links to audiobooks with moving pictures. Lazy!

Bit oh no, it's the women with their phones! HOW DARE THEY.

So there's also a problematic undercurrent of sexism and male entitlement alongside his cultural chauvinism. What a fucking charmer.

Smells like an incel to me.

[Zorral]

I personally, a reader, researcher, scholar, librarian, historian and writer, am more than grateful there are audio books and all the other ways people can read -- and guess what, that includes the eprint editions of books too, that we read on screens -- and they can even be of great assistance to scholarly work, as we can download pdfs from other institutions of education and learning -- even primary source materials and documents! -- instead of making long, complicated, EXPENSIVE real world trips to go to these places, get permission to spend time examining these materials.  So many people are too busy and overwhelmed with the work of daily living to have time or space to read though they want to.  With audio books (libraries consider both print and audio as ebooks, btw) they can sandwich their favorite novelist's latest book into their busy day while they are still doing housework, mindless data entry, whatever.

Also, book and audio have always gone hand-in-hand, particularly when it comes to fiction.  The various successive parts of Pamela and Clarissa, considered in English literary history to be among the first events in what we all now call novels, were listened to breathlessly as each part became available, by those who couldn't afford to buy the print version, and by those who could not read, and entire groups for whom this was their bit of social life in their days of endless labor for other people -- particularly women.  Considering the responses of these listeners nobody could even begin to think the listeners didn't 'get' the material, weren't affected by it, had an experience that was somehow less than those who read the print sitting solitary in a room.  Just the opposite, in fact, most likely.

Of course those who could afford the time to sit silently solo in a room to read, by class distinction, surely did think otherwise, that certainly those lower laboring classes couldn't possibly have as full and superior an experience as they, ladies and men of leisure, did.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

2 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

So there's also a problematic undercurrent of sexism and male entitlement alongside his cultural chauvinism.

Maybe though, it's just that he's very young and is ignorant by his youth and inexperience with reading, research, history etc., who hasn't had to really work for a living (yet?),  so he's not considered how very little he knows and how very narrowly he's thinking about 'reading' and what reading is.   But, ya, it was noticed that it was 'women' he used as examples.

Reading is really a luxury, like all entertainment is.  People forget that because technology has made all entertainments so relatively inexpensive and available now -- which always, whatever innovation it is, has been decried by the already privileged, yes, almost always, men -- as in 6th C Greece -- horrified that the words of Homer were being written down! these men who either did the recitatation/singing themselves and were well paid for that, or were able to gather with their equally privileged MALE cohorts to drink, listen and cuddle with dancing girls, while the singers recited and sang.  Gads, writing this words down meant some damned indulgent father would allow his daughter to learn to read and then she too could have access to ideas inappropriate for her pretty little head which had to be filled only with wool, child care and serving the men of the household every moment she wasn't sleeping, which moments were also, as ordained by god, fewer than those the men of her household slept.  One woman could read to a whole lot of other women all at the same time then -- O the Horrors!

[Jaxom 1974]

11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Maybe though, it's just that he's very young and is ignorant by his youth and inexperience with reading, research, history etc., who hasn't had to really work for a living (yet?),  so he's not considered how very little he knows and how very narrowly he's thinking about 'reading' and what reading is.   But, ya, it was noticed that it was 'women' he used as examples.

 

The tone and attitude of, "simply wanting have a debate about the topic" smacks more of someone older and deathly afraid that the things they prefer aren't what's popular with everyone else anymore. I don't think youth can be an excuse here. Lord know such an attitude isn't what a character such as Rodrigo Belmonte would espouse, you know, if someone was actually reading (or listening!) to his story...but I digress...

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Im 27, working at a tech firm and the same guy who started the investments thread in General Chatter, hope the suspense is broken.  Anyways, we’ll just have to agree to disagree guys, gonna get back to my kindle(not against e-books)now for the latest KJ Parker omnibus ! 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

, "simply wanting have a debate about the topic

Well, there is this too, about an authentic debate: he didn't provide a single title or instance to show that someone listening to a book was having an inferior experience, and was lazy.  Specifics and citations are essential in these matters if one is serious.

I personally am far more concerned that people don't know how to listen! That they don't listen, don't know how to, whether it is about their health, how to sew on a button, etc.  Well, that latter is a bad example because one needs to demonstrate something like sewing to have it make sense.  But not listening, not hearing, much less having reading comprehension regarding how very bad for us all this hatred, bigotry, racist thinking and violent behavior is.

The lecture format for so much course work is, according to various faculty with whom I have regular conversations, is rapidly losing favor with student (already has) -- but students generally also really hate to read books too.  Whatya gonna do?

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

working at a tech firm

So what is it you want?  This was all contentless sillyness! 

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

So what is it you want?  This was all contentless sillyness! 

Like I said, he's a troll and a wanna-be edgelord. They come in, say something provocative and inane, throw up their hands declaring "it's a debate we should have/a lot of people think this", yadda yadda, and then walk across the room while their stinkbomb declaration infests the room. 

It's like being a human clickbaiter, and they are always bad faith actors.

Edited July 23, 2023 by IlyaP

[Ser Not Appearing]

Yes.

Any other questions?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

in the same sentence. 

 

Also, in the original post:

 

 

 

 

You absolutely were berating people. 

Just an FYI… I never said reading audiobooks “feels like cheating”…

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Where does reading to someone else fall in this conversation?  I’d wager all children who learn to love reading (the activity) and books (in whatever form) learn it by the OG audiobook - someone reading it aloud to them.

Someone scaling a mountain and someone driving to the top can both enjoy the view, and neither is diminished except by snobbery about the method of getting there - I’m not going to shit on someone who loves Tolkien, but “got there” via audiobooks.  If someone doesn’t enjoy reading (for whatever reason, including things like blindness or dyslexia), I just don’t have love of the activity in common with them, but might have the same love of the content.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, IlyaP said:

a wanna-be edgelord

Yes. Very young, without much experience and knowledge, outside of pressing keys -- tech doesn't provide much in terms of understanding beyond bits and bytes (not that knowing this stuff isn't important, and it does matter), but there's so much more one has to learn and understand to be a fully functioning human being, with compassion, generosity and just plain knowing what one is seeing.

But kids do often grow up ... at some point ... we hope.

[IlyaP]

40 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Just an FYI… I never said reading audiobooks “feels like cheating”…

I think? he meant to quote our Little Frumpy Edgelord.