[colechristensen]

>I don't think people should pretend that an audiobook is a book. You process the two in completely different ways.

Is this attitude a holdover from encouraging small children to read for themselves? I don't know if this is quite the right framing but are you... hearing-illterate to some degree?

Some voice actors definitely add a layer of interpretation, and some are distractingly bad, but otherwise it could not be any more of an equal experience absorbing a book through my eyes or my ears. Unless there was a need to physically interact with the book, quickly flipping between sections or keeping notes in the margin, which I rarely do.

"I didn't really get the full experience until I read it on the page instead of listening" is an absurd statement to me, but maybe people's brains work differently.

There are things missing from text that can be conveyed over audio or with body language in person certainly so those experiences can't be directly translated from real life to the page.

[dqv]

It's not a maybe. People's brains work differently.

For one thing, in the written version, it's way easier to scan backwards precisely to a point in the text to clarify missed details.

Sometimes I like to stop reading for a moment and take in the scenery. With an audiobook, the narrator has already decided to blurt out the next line. Or I'd have to quickly pause it and lose my train of thought. With reading I'm fully in control of when the next bit of information will be introduced.

Audiobooks are great for dialog-heavy stories, but sometimes I want to spend a little bit longer on a particular page when the author is building imagery... what's the equivalent of that in an audiobook, slowing the speech down? Except it's not about speed, it's about soaking in the particular meaning of a word (or string of words) before going onto the next.

I don't think this even scratches the surface of how different they are as mediums of storytelling.

[kriro]

Fair enough, I understand the UX/interacting with the medium argument. Regarding the processing in the brain, there's claims that "The Representation of Semantic Information Across Human Cerebral Cortex During Listening Versus Reading Is Invariant to Stimulus Modality", see: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/39/7722

The study has issues but at least the hypothesis of representing information independent of the modality you consumed it in seems like a decent default to me.

[dqv]

Yes, this is where the disagreement between the two camps arises. Some people view reading holistically while others are only concerned with the end result. If only the end result matters, it doesn't matter much how you got there.

This isn't a perfect comparison (since I believe there may be some underlying mechanical difference), but it's like how it's possible to get your nutritional needs met with liquid nutrition or eating whole foods. They have the same end result nutritionally, but some people find liquid nutrition to be horrible.

I think it's especially the case for harder-to-read books that I prefer the textual version. Some books are highly referential. They may take place in a country I'm not familiar with. Take The Stranger by Camus. I have never been to Algiers (or Algeria for that matter), so I want to get a feel for the beach in Algiers. Sometimes the author will refer to a flower I've never heard of, so I will look it up. Stuff like this is important to me for experiencing the story, but for others, it's not important. They use context clues to determine "it's a flower" and just fill in whatever flower they feel like putting there.

[telxosis]

I am sure people are very different in this area.

I love books and audiobooks and I experience absolutely no difference between the two but that is contingent on liking the voice actor's voice.

This year I have really moved to listening to all books read by the synthetic af_heart model. I love that voice so much. #1 Robertson Dean, #2 af_heart.

[jolmg]

> it could not be any more of an equal experience absorbing a book through my eyes or my ears.

With stories, probably. With nonstories, and depending on what kind of nonstory book, I might jump around a lot. I might like to skim quickly (e.g. chapters/sections, starting sentences of every few paragraphs, etc.), then skim more thoroughly (e.g. recheck paragraphs of a chapter to get a general flow of it and how they connect, etc.), then read thoroughly on some sections and less others. You just can't do that with audiobooks. You don't have the same level of control.

Depending on how thought-provoking something is, my mind may stray on thinking of implications. Then, it's easier for my eyes to dart back by the time I notice and reread x or y, than rewinding, listening a little bit, rewind some more, etc. I might just stare at some words sometimes. You can't stare at sound.

Memory in relation to sight and sound is probably different, too. With sight you can kind of make more associations. You read an idea, and you can associate that with the location of where you're reading it (what part of the page, around how many pages have been turned in the chapter, what chapter, thickness of pages on left and right side of the spine). With sound, it's just a single stream. You're not staring at the timestamp location in the file of everything you're hearing and there isn't like this hierarchical location structure.

[wahnfrieden]

I often pause and reflect. Or replay a couple pages or start over with a chapter. Not totally alien to what you’re describing, but most people aren’t so hands on with audio controls, sure. Though you can choose to be with the right tools for it.

[jolmg]

Yeah, the benefit of audiobooks is being able to do it while doing chores or being out and about. The medium's ideal for being hands-off.