[KaiserPro]

Could you expand on the audiobook part?

Im assuming that screens dont count because its not novels/literature

but audio books are the same content but delivered by a different medium, I am genuinely curious as to your opinion on is not counting

[hbn]

Audiobooks do not feel like disconnecting. It feels like another app on my smart device pumping digital sound into my ears.

Leaving my devices inside and sitting on the porch, reading a book feels much healthier for my brain. And more intentional consumption than passive noise to kill time.

[bcjdjsndon]

> feels much healthier

Isn't that how tarot cards and all that bollocks works?

[world2vec]

I just think listening to a book is not the same as actually reading it. Just my personal preference, really, and I'm not knocking down on audiobooks.

Listening to audiobooks, IMHO, is a more passive and less focused way of consuming literature.

[malloryerik]

I must say this truly depends. I can sometimes be more focused with an audiobook. An extreme example? Heidegger's Being and Time, Macquarie and Robinson translation. The audiobook version read by Martyn Swain is a godsend for helping one try to grapple with this monster. Though his only commentary is in timbre, rhythm, speed, it absolutely enriches the reading. The audiobook is something like 24 hours long, but there's just no way you finish in that time (if you ever do finish); if you're like me you've gotta rewind rewind rewind, baby.

A talented reader can work magic. Ukemi and Naxos have great titles.

[KaiserPro]

Thank you for this.

You're not the first person to say this. I have some empathy for this view, even though its the opposite of mine.

For me, audiobooks offer, more space for imagination. More recently its also a more consistent way to get unbroken narrative into my head. However I strongly suspect that is down to how I process information.

I didn't really read properly until I was quite old, however talking radio was quite ubiquitous in my house. There were lots of audiobook-like content. so perhaps its training?

[randusername]

IMO audiobooks and physical books are an identical experience for passive reading, but not for active reading.

So audiobook genre fiction is reading, but audiobook War and Peace or audiobook The C Programming Language doesn't count. Not for arbitrary gate-keeping reasons, but because reading those books implies a more active form of engagement than marching linearly through it.

[thfuran]

And it’s my understanding that, auditory vs visual processing aside, studies demonstrate that the brain activation is essentially identical between reading a book and listening to it.

[BoingBoomTschak]

Depends on the amount of focus you dedicate to your listening. But unlike reading, it's much easier to use it as background activity.

Also, I'm very much convinced that the brain is distracted away from the content by the voice acting and intonation; same way that most people physically can't concentrate when listening to music with vocals, evolution made us really sensitive to the human voice.

[esseph]

> but audio books are the same content but delivered by a different medium, I am genuinely curious as to your opinion on is not counting

Audio books are passive content. It's not reading. Not remotely the same brain process.

[watwut]

Imo, audio books are perfectly comparable to listening to podcasts. Calling it reading is absurd. It is not reading, it is listening.

And reading on screen is reading.