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I don't have a problem with audiobooks, but they're very clearly not reading; in the same way that watching the news is not reading the newspaper.
On a skills level, you're not practicing the act of looking at glyphs and words and translating them into meaning. This is important to practice, because it's actually really hard, especially if the book uses complicated or rare words. Humans have to learn this skill, it's not innate. You also don't learn new words via audiobook; you assume the reader hiccupped and move on.
On the activity level, you can't consume the book at your own pace. For most people, it becomes a "passive" activity instead of an active one, so you rarely retain the information; especially if you're multitasking or using it as background noise to drown out your thoughts. Most people don't sit quietly and pay attention to every word, I find they have it on as white noise while distracted. You may as well put on music instead.
The audiobook reader also decides for you what voices characters have, and in a way, dictates the personality of every character. That's an opportunity loss in practicing creativity and imagination.
I think it's great that stories are reaching so many more people via audiobook. But they're not a book, they're a reading; in the same way that if you read a book to a kid, you don't say that they've read the book.
This sentiment has been repeated a couple times in this thread but I’m not sure where it comes from as it’s entirely false.
This is worded as an established fact despite the fact that this has been studied in the past and disproven entirely.
This is the only thing with any truth to it. You’re right that in order to get better at the ability of visually reading something, you have to practice this step of decoding written words into meaning, but I also don’t think it’s relevant at all to the core process of “reading”. Once the decoding step is over, whether it’s visual or auditory, all the actual comprehension and processing that your brain does is identical.
I've seen people listen to audiobooks. When I ask them, they can't even tell me what happened in the last 5 minutes. So it cannot be disproven entirely, because I've seen it happen multiple times. What studies are you referring to?
I’ve seen people read books. When I ask them, they can’t even tell me what happened in the last 5 minutes, and in some cases, can’t recall a single significant detail of what they read throughout the entire book. So from an unverified anecdotal standpoint I think it’s a wash.
However there have been dozens of studies on this topic over the last 70 years. One of the more significant recent studies was This one where they looked at brain scans of people reading and listening to audiobooks and found that the brain activity between the two different kinds of readers was the same, down to the specific region of the brain.
The most comprehensive meta-analysis of these studies found that there was no reliable difference in comprehension or retention between the modes of reading, which proves both our anecdotes are just statistical outliers and not indicative of any real innate difference.
Skimming the first study, it was 9 people. Also, it doesn't "disprove" my argument at all. In these studies, the participants were likely sitting in a quiet room, and in the first study at least, half were taking notes and effectively quizzing each other! Of course it was just as effective for remembering. I remember things people tell me in person. It's literally how school works.
My post was specifically talking about how most people consume audiobooks in practice. They don't sit in a quiet room, taking notes, and quizzing each other. They're doing the dishes, driving, walking, working, reading, watching YouTube while also playing a game on their phone (yes really). Completely different scenario. How many times have you talked to someone distracted and at the end they're like "huh?" Now apply that to audiobooks. I'm sure if you sit in a quiet room and study via audiobook it's extremely effective, but again, most people don't do that.
There's probably even a study out there proving my point, that people don't listen and retain information properly when distracted, but I'm not going to go looking for it to win an internet argument. Either you get my point or you don't.
you're being trolled.
You think people did studies for decades on this in order to troll this one Lemmy user?
Nah I think this person just is out of practice for reading comprehension
you're more generous than I am.
You literally didn’t even read or comprehend the studies I sent you my man lmao
Lmao you skimming just the first study and not comprehending it at all is not helping your case for reading over listening. Of course you control for outside variables when you compare two things, that’s how studies work.
I mean if you can refute 70 years of studies and the current scientific consensus be my guest, but the data we have does not support your opinion at all.
My man, that study only tested whether reading and listening are comparable for learning. Do you not see how that's basically irrelevant to my original comment?
What I sent you comprises nearly 50 different studies over a 70 year span and over 4,000 participants from elementary school age to adults, in a variety of environments and tested for comprehension and retention of the information specifically, the exact thing your comment is based on, and the findings were that there is no real difference between the two.
The irony of you making a case for the superiority of reading written words for comprehension and I sent you two written sources and you absorbed and comprehended almost none of it. Like, would it have helped if I sent them to you in audio form instead?
Aight fine you got me with the bait. I regretfully read the second link. Let me summarise it for you.
The second study looked at whether people understand things better when they read information or listen to it.
Overall, the researchers found that reading and listening were about equally effective for understanding information. However, reading seemed to help more in certain situations. For example, people did better when they could read at their own paceinstead of having information read to them at a fixed speed. Reading also helped more when the task required deeper thinking, like making connections or understanding ideas that were not directly stated, rather than just remembering exact details.
The study also suggested that the difference between reading and listening may depend on the language being studied. In languages where spelling and pronunciation are closely connected, reading and listening seemed more similar than in languages where they are less predictable.
Again, no mention of testing in distracted settings. You're just making shit up at this point. But if you want to feel smart because you "read" 40 books per week while doing the dishes, you do you. You seem to care very deeply about this topic since you're all over this thread.
There you go. Glad you finally got there.
Why would they do that? Add confounding factors to their study?