[SkyPuncher]

I love learning, but I hate reading. Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else.

In my view, software development is mostly skimming and pattern recognization. Very little actual, deep reeding in my opinion.

[WhrRTheBaboons]

>Most of my learning now is via audio books while I'm doing something else.

You're not actually learning anything then. Memorizing trivia, sure. But not actually learning.

[pizzalife]

That seems like a pretty controversial take. Why would you not be able to learn things orally?

[mrweasel]

You absolutely can learn orally, what I'd question is if you can do so without active listening. Listing to anything while doing, well anything, is pretty pointless to me, I tends to not listen and not absorb anything. I can barely listen to a podcast while working out, I miss huge gaps where my brain just isn't listening.

[Brian_K_White]

Maybe working out requires attention like a sport if you're trying to eploy proper technique and be observant of pains or signs, develop, etc.

I miss nothing from listening to books while driving, doing the dishes, other houshold chores, puttering in the garage like working on a bike or car, even home repars that are somewhat technical, even electronics if only the solding/building part.

The only time I can't listen to a book (and actually get anything out of it) is when my forground activity requires the same kinds of facilities. For instance with the electronics. Listening to a book while soldering a pcb is no problem at all. The two things don't conflict, and neither hurts the other. But I can't work on the design of that same pcb whilke listening to a book. In that case the schematic gets designed fine and the book is a blank like I slept through it. pcb layout is kinda half-way. It's more visual/spacial, which is almost like doing some ordinary manual task, but it does take more problem solving attention and the book loses out somewhat sometimes.

But for all kinds of activities it's like two different things that don't impact each other at all.

Even creative things as long as it's in a different domain like drawing vs having some politics explained.

I can't listen to a book and write a song at the same time. Or code.

Cad is like pcb layout kinda 50/50 so I might still put something on but just a podcast where I don't care if I miss something.

[SkyPuncher]

This is where you and I are different. I’m neurodivergent so having another low-mental load activity (like cleaning) actually helps my mind from wondering.

[mrweasel]

If the has to do with being neurodivergent or neurotypical I have no idea, it might just be people being different, but low-mental load activities is what makes my mind wander off. It's also something I actively want to happen, hence working out without music, podcasts or audio-books. To me at least it's a kind of meditation and it calms my mind.

[nkrisc]

It’s the focus that’s important. If you’re listening while doing other things, you’re not really focusing on it.

[tekla]

You're not actually using your brain to do much, just as OP said, sort-of badly memorizing trivia.

[hateful]

With me (I have ADHD), I would never be able to listen to an audiobook alone, I would zone out and day dream one paragraph in. But If I'm playing a game on my phone, I can listen and pay attention for hours.

[WhrRTheBaboons]

I have ADHD too and while I can totally sympathize, it just doesn't work for actual learning. Unless you're some sort of genius, I guess.

For what it's worth, I cannot recommend medication enough. It took me 4 attempts to finish university before finally getting diagnosed and acing everything first try. Sometimes I still find myself amazed at being able to pay attention to a meeting, a lecture, or a book for more than 30 minutes, remembering how impossible it was before.

[smcg]

That's because you trained yourself that way.

[beej71]

Can I ask why you hate reading? Is this a general statement or is it about the quality of programming-related reading in particular?

[xpct]

> I love learning, but I hate reading.

Correction: you love the feeling of consuming information, not learning.

[smrq]

Imagine gatekeeping learning. I suppose the blind are incapable of it, then? Or is taking in information via the fingers somehow more valid than via the ears?

[shimman]

You're extremely limited in the type of learning you can do if you choose not to read. It sounds harsh but the poster is making a salient point. Quality matters and following "I love science" on facebook is not substitute for a proper education (or good book for that matter).

[naikrovek]

How in the heck can you plausibly correct someone else like that? You (almost certainly) don’t know that person, even in passing.

People can learn from watching a documentary just as well as they can learn from reading, but reading teaches you how to interpret language as you continue reading, and other forms of information delivery convey understanding of their own mediums in their own ways. I would not have learned how to quickly spot a terrible documentary over a great one if I had not watched so many in my life. It doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything because I watched and listened instead of read, it just means that I didn’t read the documentaries.

Pro tip: don’t correct people about their own lives.

[xpct]

I'll admit fault for my remark, but I'll stand by the point I meant to express.

Part of disagreement probably stems from what type of 'learning' we're discussing. In my view, at the broadest sense that we can define 'learning', is incorporating information about our surroundings into our internalized world model. The type of learning I see most valuable personally, is the type that expands this horizon the most, or helps us think in frameworks that break down the least in different contexts.

This type of foundational building often requires deep thought, but is also often deeply rewarding if you get it right. This doesn't require reading by itself, but ruminating and neural rewiring can often be produced by it, if you consume the right content for you. I think it's important to have different experiences, many of which come from consuming different mediums, as well as doing things in real life, but a significant part of knowledge to this day has been passed down by books.

Even if we mean 'learning' to be more similar to 'gathering information', I think it can be most efficiently done by reading, or doing. I don't hold as much disagreement there, nor any judgement, but I wouldn't equate the two. Perhaps a bit pedantic, but I read 'liking learning' beyond the means by which it's achieved, and 'hating reading' reads temperamental to me.

[mibsl]

Why not go further - learning is doing, not consuming (reading, watching, listening)?

[wuliwong]

Reading is not the only modality for learning.