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Originally Posted by Larla
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This was a really good article. One thing I thought of prior to reading and the author was perhaps leading to, is that when I take my time with a novel there is a lot of subvocalization. So I can easily understand why listening to a book and reading a book might utilize the same mental process. It just so happens that having a text in front of me makes it easier to focus.
This seems to be more of a problem with the language than anything else. If the content consumed is word for word then one could mark it as 'read'. The idea of reading is already super subjective as some people skim and other people linger with the subvocalization and imagery. I still remember my horror when I realized one of my best friends (with a phd) was one of those GoodReads people (I won't use the word that comes to mind) who would check out books from the library, maybe skim them and/or read a synopsis online and write seemingly pretentious reviews. It was a statistics thing, an ego thing and she later quit playing Words With Friends because she realized that also brought out a bad competitive side.
Of course there are merits to each method of consuming books and the author acknowledges this. Last year I read 7 of Ian Fleming's James Bond books and was able to see the way the spelling and use of words since the 1950s has changed. As an American, being exposed to a British author from that period was informative. I also love that I can highlight words on my Kindle, read their definition and save them to a list for later review.
I read a dozen of R.A Salvatore books before I was 10 years old, and periodically play catch up with Drizzt. To see what the audio book craze was all about I pirated a random R.A Salvatore audio book (before my Audible trial). I only made it 10 minutes because it was terrible but found out I have been saying the author's name wrong for nearly 20 years. I am sure there a dozens of other words that I was caught saying incorrectly because I had only read them in books and never heard them spoken out loud.
When it comes down to it, you know how well you were listening to that book just like I know if I really read the book we are discussing in class. Like the author says, there is no free pizza for meeting your reading goal. If we are reading for personal growth then arguing semantics is only a method of avoiding being honest with ourselves.