"Listening is the new reading" is a marketing slogan. Who cares what marketers say! What this discussion shows is that a lot of you care.
I prefer to read. For a long time my cataracts were considered inoperable for a reason too long to go into, and I had to do a bunch of reading to stay up-to-date at work, so I had to stop reading novels, one of the great joys of my life. I listened to audiobooks for about a decade. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then my eyesight got so bad they had to do lens replacement regardless of the risk, it was successful and I was so used to audiobooks I continued to listen to them until I got my first Kindle in 2009. The Kindle arrived. I started reading and I've only listened to a couple of audiobooks since.
I prefer reading now because it's more convenient. If I listen I have to do something with my hands or my mind will wander and I keep skipping back to see what I missed. Also I simply pick up my Kindle or my phone and read. Audiobooks require either getting out the earphones or being in a space where no-one else will hear my speakers in case one of the characters mutters a bad word. With the Kindle I just read.
I did a lot of my listening while driving and that got around that problem. I could drive and focus on the book and my mind wouldn't wander and it never impacted my driving. I have an excellent driving record.
For about 5 or 10 years before I retired I spent a lot of weekends driving around the countryside to listen to books. I found it to be an ideal way to listen and also to make my contribution to pollution and global warming.
Thinking back I remember which books I read and which I listened to in a lot of cases but I have no idea in other cases. I simply can't tell from how well I remember the book.
I can't argue that they're the same experience; reading and listening, but I do feel qualified to argue that they're equal. Either one is as good as the other as long as the book isn't one that makes you skip back and forth a lot.
I reread to books a lot, usually a few years later, so a lot of those I listened to were books I'd initially read. A lot of books I've read since then are books I initially listened to. I can't really think of any way that one was superior to the other except those that I listened to with poor narrators.
One book I listened to, Jeffrey Eugenides "Middlesex" was narrated so beautifully that, even though I'd love to read it again now, I can't imagine it without Kristoffer Tabori's voice.
"The Good Earth" was mentioned in this context earlier. That's a book I've read every few years since the 1950s. The two times before my last reading were both audiobooks, one narrated by George Guidall and the next time by Anthony Heald. I still have both. I listened the one by Heald because it was a gift and I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, something I normally won't do but I'd heard him read before and liked him. They're both excellent. I prefer the Guidall reading.
Anyway about 5 or 6 years later I read the book on my Kindle. Somehow that book lends itself beautifully to a good narration. I've been thinking next time I might want to listen again.
People say you don't retain as much when listening and I wonder how much that might be due to the fact that if you don't do something with your hands your mind will wander. I've never been you when listening so I don't know if you, whoever you are, might have that problem, but I do. Driving solves that problem for me, as does playing solitaire on the computer. Driving is an unconscious thing for me so it's the better solution.
Barry