Listening is the new reading

[Apache]

I can listen to audio books while driving without losing the story and it will keep me awake. Sitting at home and listening puts me out.
Apache

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by haertig

I don't really care if making use of an audiobook is called listening or reading. It's just a word.

I just wish I could enjoy audiobooks more. I find it very hard to keep my concentration up when listening to one in a car (the only place I've ever tried one). Maybe I just have stumbled across poor narrators. But many of then just seem to drone on and on. Others place emphasis on words, or do voice tricks (try to speak in a high pitch, etc.) that I find extremely annoying. Several of the books I've tried have British narrators. I have nothing against the British, but the accent is distracting to me.

With audiobooks, my mind wanders, and I find I've missed a lot of the story as time goes on. I could never finish an audio novel. Short stories are challenge enough. I wish this wasn't the case. But it is for me. So I prefer reading with my own eyes.

I love listening to books by British authors read by British narrators. They supply a bit of atmosphere my American mind couldn't possibly supply reading print.

I listen for about 2 hours a day, driving to and from work. Occasionally I have to rewind a bit because something distracted me from the story, but overall, I think I get just as much or more out of listening compared to reading print.

[Lemurion]

I'm another for whom listening isn't reading. I can certainly understand people saying they "read" the book when they listened to the audiobook, but for me it's a totally different experience.

I can't equate reading and listening for myself because I don't process them the same way. As for "immersion reading," it would drive me absolutely nuts; it's two different data rates and I'd be waiting for the narrator to catch up to my eyes.

For myself I don't like using the same word for two very different experiences. Others may feel differently, but for me the differences are too great. I'd feel like I was lying if I said I read something I'd listened to. My experience, understanding, and retention are too different to do that.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Apache

I can listen to audio books while driving without losing the story and it will keep me awake. Sitting at home and listening puts me out.
Apache

Same here. Sometimes, when I'm getting close to the end of an audiobook when I get home, I will try to listen to the end sitting at home. I did that with an hour to go on my last audiobook and lasted maybe 15 minutes before dozing off. I had to rewind to the last point in the story that I remembered hearing.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why can't you transfer the Overdrive books to your mp3 player?

Through overdrive, they are ODM, and won't play. Have to have the overdrive app

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Through overdrive, they are ODM, and won't play. Have to have the overdrive app

But once you download to your computer, you should be able to transfer the mp3 files to any mp3 device.

How to install OverDrive for Windows (desktop)

[Froide]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Listening to to a book in Morse code would be the aural equivalent of reading it.

True, if one's reading in a foreign language (to account for the need to translate, in both cases).

[4691mls]

I think it would be good to have a word (such as "consuming" or "imbibing" suggested upthread) to cover all methods of taking in a story, with the terms "reading" and "listening" used to specify the method of intake.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Catlady

You specifically compared being read to with knowing how to read.

No, you just said that listening to a book is the same as reading it, therefore :-

If
Listening to a book = reading a book
Then
Knowing how to listen = knowing how to read

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

Through overdrive, they are ODM, and won't play. Have to have the overdrive app

There is Librivox though. While it is only PD books there I believe at least they are in a format that can be listened to on different mobile media devices.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

No, you just said that listening to a book is the same as reading it, therefore :-

If
Listening to a book = reading a book
Then
Knowing how to listen = knowing how to read

That's absurd, and you know it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

That's absurd, and you know it.

On the contrary, it's an inescapable consequence of the statement that listening to a book is the same activity as reading it. It's an elementary application of formal logic: if "A" and "B" are equivalent, then any conclusion resulting from "A" must also result from "B".

[DiapDealer]

Language and logic doesn't mix. Never has. Why bring it up at all? Slang, argot, jargon ... none of these things are confined by (or expected to be) logical. To pick out one illogical use of a word as troublesome while looking the other way on thousands of others makes no sense. I get "pet peeves"; I really do. But expecting language usage to adhere to logic is quite pointless.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by HarryT

On the contrary, it's an inescapable consequence of the statement that listening to a book is the same activity as reading it. It's an elementary application of formal logic: if "A" and "B" are equivalent, then any conclusion resulting from "A" must also result from "B".

But A and B are not equivalent in this case are they? When you read text you have to visualize solely in your head what is happening. But when you watch a movie you are seeing another person's interpretation of that series of events. For example if I read Dracula by Bram Stoker then I visualize the characters, what they look like, what the count's castle looks like, his coach pulling up to the Borgo pass etc. But if I watch one of the many movies about the count and his exploits I am faced with just accepting the film makers interpretation of what the characters look like and what the setting looks like.

Two totally different kinds of experiences. It takes less effort to watch a movie than it does to visualize things on our own. Likewise I think it also takes less effort to listen to a voice than it does to read text. There is a good reason for that as well. We (as a species) have spoken words for far longer than we have been writing things down and each of us learns to listen to other voices unless we are born deaf (as well as learning how to talk) long before we learn how to read.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crich70

But A and B are not equivalent in this case are they? When you read text you have to visualize solely in your head what is happening. But when you watch a movie you are seeing another person's interpretation of that series of events. For example if I read Dracula by Bram Stoker then I visualize the characters, what they look like, what the count's castle looks like, his coach pulling up to the Borgo pass etc. But if I watch one of the many movies about the count and his exploits I am faced with just accepting the film makers interpretation of what the characters look like and what the setting looks like.

Oh, I completely agree with you, but I've always been in the "reading and listening are completely different" camp .