Is Listening to Audiobooks Really Reading?

I like listening to books on audio. I like it. Some of my literary friends don't think it counts as reading. I find listening easier than reading. Do you agree? I don't know if I should care.

Easy listening.

It's easy.

I wouldn't put a lot of faith in what your friends say. People who think about reading in terms of what counts don't seem to enjoy books all that much. Readers are trying to improve their speed and join clubs to keep them accountable as a result of their moralistic gloom.

Some people in this culture are quick to dismiss audiobooks as a way to get away, but they can't seem to agree on why. Studies show that people who listen to books retain less information than people who read them. The form makes it harder to come back, after a spell of distraction, to the passage where your mind started to wander. The person recording does the work of conveying emotion, so the audiobook eliminates the reader's responsibility to read. According to this rather tenuous logic, listening to audiobooks is inferior because it lacks the element of suffering that is incontrovertible evidence of accomplishment.

Looking at books as a means to another end is the bigger problem. People who want to read more are motivated by the promise that it will prevent cognitive decline, improve brain connections, or increase emotional intelligence. The obsession with retention assumes that the purpose of reading is to absorb knowledge that can be used to demonstrate cultural literacy. There is a chance that books could be a source of pleasure. I bet you had a good time with the joy of literature.

Many of the oldest stories in our literary canon were written as bardic tales before they were printed. The Homeric epics are thought to have started with bards who told them about fires and improvised their central plot points. Evolutionary biologists have a lot of theories about the function of these rituals, but I don't think members of these cultures were consciously thinking about the consequences of their actions. They were riveted by the power of the stories they were listening to.

At a time when poetry, music, and storytellers were so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, these early stories were mostly written in verse. audiobook fans are drawn to listening because it is easier to discern the melodic qualities of prose, which often get lost when we quickly scans a page of text without actually hearing the words in our heads, The right hemisphere of the brain is more associated with music, poetry, and spirituality if you listen as opposed to read. Some religious texts are written to be read aloud. Karen said that the term qur'n means "recitation" and that the scripture's many variations only take on their full effect when they are voiced by a gifted reciter.

Most people find it hard to remember the last time they read a book, regardless of how they consume it. Many books you have encountered have failed to live up to their potential, even if you want to read more. Anxieties about post-literacy tend to focus on the question of medium, and audiobooks are often hailed as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, along with social media, visual entertainment, and the decline in attention spans. It seems to me that most books are very bad and that's why reading feels dull. Most of them are poorly written. This has always been the case, even though there were some flops, and it becomes more elusive when we are told that reading is not enjoyable. It is hard to object to the offensive quality of many of the books on offer when a culture is obsessed with reading challenges and word count goals.