As someone with an audiobook library numbering in the mid one hundreds, I find myself halting when someone asks me if I’ve “read” a particular book.
Does listening to it count?
I’ve decided it does, but evidently there is some disagreement about that. So I did what everyone does nowadays: I Googled it to see what the AI answer was. I asked exactly that: Do audiobooks count as reading? “Yes,” it said. It then went on to explain why with a list:
— Cognitive Benefits: Listening improves vocabulary, comprehension, critical thinking, and fluency, similar to print books.
— Accessibility: Audiobooks are crucial for blind individuals, people with dyslexia, or those with ADHD, providing access to literature otherwise unavailable.
— Multitasking & Convenience: They allow people to “read” while commuting, exercising, or doing chores, fitting reading into busy lives.
— Story Immersion: Engaging with a narrated story is a form of consuming a book, delivering the same core experience.
— Research Support: Studies show similar comprehension and retention rates between listening to audiobooks and reading print versions.
What is the contrary view? Again, according to Google’s AI summary:
Some argue that reading involves the visual decoding of text, creating a unique mental state, and that narrators add interpretation, making it a different activity.
I can see this side of the argument. As a long-time lover and reader of books, with a home library measuring well over a thousand volumes, I have at least a toe, if not an entire foot, in the traditional, physical book-loving side of this argument. I’m not sure my whole heart is there anymore, however, as I have found listening to books, mostly non-fiction, to be eminently edifying and satisfying.
I can paint, knit, do a puzzle, cook, and do chores while listening to a book. Audiobooks come with their own alchemy: they make more hours in the day to “read.” It’s possible to, well, have a life, and still be a big reader! It’s hard for me to find any quibble in that. How can one sneer at how one consumes writing as long as it’s consumed? We wouldn’t regard Braille as “not reading” would we? Just because the tactile alphabet is different from the printed word? Of course it’s reading.
In the end, this struck me as one of those “first world” or “champagne” arguments. (Like pronouns…) Were life harder we wouldn’t even dream of having this discussion. We’d just be glad our fellow Americans were taking in book writing.