Listening is the new reading

[Deskisamess]

I’ve borrowed a couple of audio MP3s from my public library and always download them to my iPhone using the Overdrive app.

Not books, but some of the LA Theater Works from Neil Simon. I do like the stage play type dramatic readings...Lost in Yonkers was great.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

So all those books I thought I'd been reading the last few years, they don't count?

Which have you been doing? Reading a book, or listening to someone else read it? Surely you accept that the two activities are not synonymous? I'm not saying that one is "better" than another; simply that they are different. Listening is not reading.

[barryem]

"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

[GeoffR]

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

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Which have you been doing? Reading a book, or listening to someone else read it? Surely you accept that the two activities are not synonymous? I'm not saying that one is "better" than another; simply that they are different. Listening is not reading.

If you define reading as consuming and comprehending the specified content, yes, they are synonymous.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Catlady

If you define reading as consuming and comprehending the specified content, yes, they are synonymous.

That's an extremely odd definition. Using that definition, would you describe listening to a piece of music as "reading" it? You are, after all, "consuming and comprehending the content". I don't think many people would say "I went to a concert and read Beethoven's 5th symphony"!

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's an extremely odd definition. Using that definition, would you describe listening to a piece of music as "reading" it? You are, after all, "consuming and comprehending the content". I don't think many people would say "I went to a concert and read Beethoven's 5th symphony"!

Not me. As I might consume the content, but most certainly don't comprehend it. I might comprehend the spoken parts of it, but absolutely not the music part. Maybe if I had a sense for music (like I have for text), it might be different. I can discuss an audiobook, but I cannot discuss a piece of music, except that I like it or I don't like it.

[HarryT]

My point is simply that reading and listening are not the same activity. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Audible's marketing slogan that listening to an audiobook is "reading" doesn't make it true.

I enjoy listening to audiobooks on long car journeys, but that's what I'm doing: I'm listening to them; I'm not "reading" them.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My point is simply that reading and listening are not the same activity. Not better. Not worse. Just different. Audible's marketing slogan that listening to an audiobook is "reading" doesn't make it true.

I enjoy listening to audiobooks on long car journeys, but that's what I'm doing: I'm listening to them; I'm not "reading" them.

But, as the Catlady said:

Originally Posted by Catlady

If you define reading as consuming and comprehending the specified content, yes, they are synonymous.

I personally wouldn't call listening to a book the same as reading a book, and most certainly not the "new reading", but it depends a bit on your definition of "reading" (saying that you can only read a book with your eyes isn't correct!).
And I can see where Audible comes from: somehow listening to an audiobook has a stigma (you don't count if you "only" listen to books), and it's one way to try to break it.

[Philippe D.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's an extremely odd definition. Using that definition, would you describe listening to a piece of music as "reading" it? You are, after all, "consuming and comprehending the content". I don't think many people would say "I went to a concert and read Beethoven's 5th symphony"!

I have never listened to an audiobook, but I'd say going to a concert and listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony should much closer to it than it would be to reading. In both case, you're getting (and listening to) someone's interpretation of the work, which will always be very different from getting the work directly (I don't want to use the word "consume" here).

[Blossom]

I do both. I listen and I read at the same time. I like the new slogan because audiobooks have come a long way in the fiction arena. I've been doing immersion reading for years. You are reading with your ears and eyes. The perfect solution. Truthfully it doesn't matter how you read your book. It's your preference and who cares what others think. As long as you are enjoying it that's all that matters.

Sent from my Nexus 7

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I personally wouldn't call listening to a book the same as reading a book, and most certainly not the "new reading", but it depends a bit on your definition of "reading" (saying that you can only read a book with your eyes isn't correct!).

Of course anyone is free to give words whatever meaning they wish. As Lewis Carroll put it in "Alice Through the Looking-Glass":

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

It aids the process of communication, however, when we agree on a common meaning, and my preference is to stick with how the dictionary defines "read":

1. to look at carefully so as to understand the meaning of (something written, printed, etc.): to read a book; to read music.

2. to utter aloud or render in speech (something written, printed, etc.): reading a story to his children; The actor read his lines in a booming voice.

The narrator is reading the book. I am listening to the narrator read the book.

And I can see where Audible comes from: somehow listening to an audiobook has a stigma (you don't count if you "only" listen to books), and it's one way to try to break it.

As I said, it's a marketing slogan. I see no stigma - I enjoy listening to audiobooks.

[Apache]

Marketers are always looking for a new catch phrase that will make consumers rush to buy their wares. Anyone remember the Pink Ice craze of 1991. Before the term Pink Ice the correct term was Pink Cubic Zirconium. Change the name to Pink Ice and people went nuts buying it. Mostly set into light weight 10K jewelry. The buying frenzy last approximately one year and died. Then they tried to market Lavender Ice (purple CZ). Lavender Ice did not catch on and died quickly. A good thing in my opinion.
Never buy anything because someone, who knows nothing about the product, comes up with a catchy phrase. When you listen (or read) a commercial listen closely. Most, commercials say very little that gives useful or factual information about the product. Anyone remember Jogging In A Jug?
Apache

[pwalker8]

I seem to have missed the Pink Ice craze.

It does seem like one of the major drivers behind the current tide of audiobooks is a combination of technology that makes it conveniently to listen to audiobooks without having to change a lot of cd's with the desire to multitask. I almost never just sit and listen to an audiobook. The majority of my listening time is when I'm either driving or doing repetitive tasks at work that don't require a lot of focus and concentration.

I find that reading and listening are different experiences. I listen to a lot of books that I had previously read and find myself viewing the work differently as I listen than I did when I had read it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I find that reading and listening are different experiences. I listen to a lot of books that I had previously read and find myself viewing the work differently as I listen than I did when I had read it.

I think one of the fundamental differences is that you're relying on the interpretation of the narrator, rather than seeing the material first-hand, and interpretation can make a world of difference.