There’s a longstanding debate as to whether or not listening to audiobooks counts as reading. I have a friend who claims to have read The Silmarillion at least once, but she really just listened to it on her morning commute. I’ve found tomes like Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces impenetrable without help. My media consumption is so high that there are certain novels I can’t remember if I’ve read, listened to, or both.
Everything I’m about to say I have not researched and are just my opinions.
I don’t think that listening is the same as reading. I grew up in a family where reading aloud was commonplace, and I still remember those stories. Maybe it wired my brain to absorb the information the same way, but I have to believe that the two acts exercise our minds differently. Reading is active, and listening is passive. Is the medium the message? Sometimes.
The spoken word is and always will be our native means of communication. Our ancestors were telling stories around campfires long before anyone could write them down on paper scrolls. In a way, audiobooks are a return to the oral tradition. Catching a fraction of a chapter while stuck in traffic isn’t quite the same as hearing a legend from an elder under the stars, though. Either way, messages and meaning are conveyed to us.
All our senses work with memory and retention. While sitting around the campfire listening, we’re also seeing the sparks flying up into the sky, we’re smelling the smoke and damp leaves. We feel the earth under our feet and the chill in the air. All we smell in the car is an air freshener and all we feel is the heated seat or air conditioner. It’s not quite as tactile. And when we read a book, studies show that we remember where things are on the page. Even reading on a screen doesn’t give us the same sense of place and may effect retention.
But that isn’t always my experience.
Maybe you’ve heard of the Mind Palace concept. It’s the practice of imagining yourself in a familiar place and attaching information to objects. There’s much more to it, but for my purposes that’s enough. I have a very spacial memory, unusually good recall, and a vivid imagination. Without trying, I kind of create my own memory palaces. I don’t listen to audiobooks while laying in bed (yet). I listen to things while driving, working in the yard, walking around the neighborhood, or cooking dinner.
What I’ve found is that the activity intertwines with the information. Last fall I listened to The Gray Man while mowing the lawn for the last time. I remember exactly where I was in the yard when certain things happened. So when I imagine myself walking around that certain tree under the cold sky, I can recall exactly what I heard when I was there. To this day I remember a particular part of campus, what I was doing, and what country song was on the radio when I worked grounds crew. That was over 15 years ago! Active gives significance to the passive.
No, I don’t think that anyone should say they “read” a book that someone else read to them. But I don’t believe any method is superior to another if you remember it. The main thing is that we never stop learning.
