Ages old debate of reading vs. listening to books

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by jandrew

And, it's absurd to think listening to a book and reading a book are equivalent.

Why?

Are you not getting the EXACT SAME WORDS, only taking them in through different senses?

[Ozymango]

Originally Posted by GreyWolfsGhost

Listening is not passive. Hearing is passive but truly listening requires focus the same as seeing the words on the page is not the same as reading them.

I'm enjoying reading this thread, so many passionate voices being ... well, passionate, I guess.

Certainly we all have different communications styles and some groove more on reading books, others audio books, a bunch more don't care either way, but I personally went "right on!" when I read what Grey Wolf's Ghost wrote about "listening" vs. "hearing."

Now when it comes to one-way audio communication, like an audio book or radio program or podcast where one person speaks and there's no way for the listener to respond *to the speaker* (i.e. person A has monologue, person B has no way of interacting in real time with person A), then that's one thing. It is *totally* different if you've got two people *interacting*, where I'm talking to you and you're talking to me and -- theoretically, anyway -- we go back and forth in a conversation (or the equivalent) and there's a dynamic that exists right there, right now, that affects both the speaker and the listener. It's not all canned, it "lives" while the people are talking/listening.

Books and other "one-way" communications can be very very cool and I love reading and imagining I'm having a conversation (sometimes) with the writer/speaker .... but just due to the fact that there's this "disconnect" between "what I'm saying right now" and you, dear reader, "hearing" it and then responding, in your own head and/or in some kind of communication back to me ...

It's just really, really easy for this "disconnect" to happen between people when we do the "one-way" conversations (I write, I send, I wait, you read, you think, you write, you send, I wait, etc.) that -- and I suspect this is a major problem in our current world culture today -- we humans tend to think we are talking to each other, and listening to each other, when a lot of the times we're just sorta sending words into the air and thinking they mean one thing, and somebody else picks up the words and thinks they mean something else, and then the two people (the sender of words and the picker-upper of words) each go, "What I said/heard was perfectly clear so if you said/heard differently, there's something wrong with you and/or your way of talking/thinking. Now if you just follow my example I can show you the proper way to do things."

Anyway, in my own real-world job, I gotta go out every day and work with people to resolve their problems and issues with technology so they can get their work done. I rarely know exactly what the heck their work even is, and as often as not the person doesn't really understand the problem (on a technical level), they just know that something ain't working. So, through talking and listening -- in real time, in the real world, right there talking to each other face to face -- we finally figure out some way to communicate so we both come away better off than we were when we started.

But then I realize I've been doing this for thirty years and some days are as hard as they were the first day I started.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by Catlady

It's absurd to think watching a movie and listening to a book are equivalent, which I'm sure you know.

Why is it absurd? Please explain. Both are sending words to your brain, after all, just in different ways.


Also, regardless of the absurdity, I'm not the one who made the original equivalence, as I'm sure all of us who have practiced reading comprehension already know.

Originally Posted by Catlady

]
You are being anything BUT respectful, and I'm sure you know it. Pseudo politeness isn't respectful.

Well...I personally think I've taken the high road considering how "absurd" my statements apparently are. Pseudo politeness actually is pretty respectful when you consider the alternatives.

Originally Posted by Catlady

]
Why are you deliberately skipping over the previous posts that took care to point out that once someone has learned the basics of literacy, audio or visual format doesn't matter?

Because I disagree. The basics of literacy eh? See Dick run? That's all you need, eh? Do you have research that backs up your assertion?

Originally Posted by Catlady

]
If someone says flatly that spelling and grammar are eroded by disuse, yes, I want something to back it up.

Any skill decreases from lack of practice. Even riding a bike.


https://www.brookings.edu/research/s...e-do-about-it/

"An early comprehensive review of the literature summarized several findings regarding summer loss.2 The authors concluded that: (1) on average, students’ achievement scores declined over summer vacation by one month’s worth of school-year learning, (2) declines were sharper for math than for reading, and (3) the extent of loss was larger at higher grade levels. "


"The recent literature on summer loss has been mixed. One study using data from over half a million students in grades 2-9 from a southern state (from 2008-2012) found that students, on average, lost between 25 – 30 percent of their school-year learning over the summer"

[HLS]

I like to read and listen at the same time or if a book is long... too long I’ll play the audio as I do chores just to get threw the book

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why?

Are you not getting the EXACT SAME WORDS, only taking them in through different senses?

Means matter. What's the difference between reading and having your mother read to you? It's the EXACT SAME WORDS, why even bother learning how to read in the first place?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

Why is it absurd? Please explain. Both are sending words to your brain, after all, just in different ways.


Also, regardless of the absurdity, I'm not the one who made the original equivalence, as I'm sure all of us who have practiced reading comprehension already know.




Well...I personally think I've taken the high road considering how "absurd" my statements apparently are. Pseudo politeness actually is pretty respectful when you consider the alternatives.




Because I disagree. The basics of literacy eh? See Dick run? That's all you need, eh? Do you have research that backs up your assertion?





Any skill decreases from lack of practice. Even riding a bike.


https://www.brookings.edu/research/s...e-do-about-it/

"An early comprehensive review of the literature summarized several findings regarding summer loss.2 The authors concluded that: (1) on average, students’ achievement scores declined over summer vacation by one month’s worth of school-year learning, (2) declines were sharper for math than for reading, and (3) the extent of loss was larger at higher grade levels. "


"The recent literature on summer loss has been mixed. One study using data from over half a million students in grades 2-9 from a southern state (from 2008-2012) found that students, on average, lost between 25 – 30 percent of their school-year learning over the summer"

You are being deliberately obtuse, nasty, and dismissive. I'm not going to play your game.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by Catlady

You are being deliberately obtuse, nasty, and dismissive.

I'm just asking questions. I even provided research that backed up my assertions.

Consider me a mirror. Don't blame me if you don't like what you get reflected back.

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm not going to play your game.

That's fair. Or is it fare? Hard to tell when all you get is audio.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by leebase

Sure it’s my opinion, but it’s superior to your opinion lol!

I don't disagree with most of it.

Originally Posted by leebase

You are deluding yourself if you think your vampire love story book reading is making you a better person more than if you were listening to them or watching them on tv

I don't disagree with that either. Just a more literate person

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

Means matter. What's the difference between reading and having your mother read to you? It's the EXACT SAME WORDS, why even bother learning how to read in the first place?

If I'm baking a cake, it makes absolutely no difference to the outcome if I read the recipe myself, or if I have my mom come over and read it to me.

If I watch a TV show of someone baking a cake, it makes a big difference. They will use different words than the written recipe and might even miss saying the precise amount of an ingredient being used. On the other hand, I will have the opportunity to see their technique and might learn something I wouldn't have gotten from the recipe. But since the content is different, it is just silly to claim they are equivalent.

[sealbeater]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

If I'm baking a cake, it makes absolutely no difference to the outcome if I read the recipe myself, or if I have my mom come over and read it to me.

So, there's no point in learning how to read right? It's all the same words. Just have your mom read everything for you. It's the EXACT SAME WORDS delivered by different means.

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

If I watch a TV show of someone baking a cake, it makes a big difference. They will use different words than the written recipe and might even miss saying the precise amount of an ingredient being used On the other hand, I will have the opportunity to see their technique and might learn something I wouldn't have gotten from the recipe. But since the content is different, it is just silly to claim they are equivalent.

Not that I'm arguing for the youtube videos being equivalent to reading but I see flaws in your statement. Assuming the exact same recipe, what's to stop me from reading the recipe word for word as I mix the ingredients? It's the EXACT SAME WORDS just being delivered to your brain by different means.

Assuming the content is exactly the same, what's the difference?


*Keeping in mind for the slower among you that I am an advocate of reading and I find a great deal of difference between reading, watching and listening.**

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

That's fair. Or is it fare? Hard to tell when all you get is audio.

As hard to tell in several indie books I've read recently. Homonyms seem to the downfall of some authors. The most recent horrible example had me reciting "Royalty reigns, horses have reins, rain falls from the sky". We bake with gluten-free flowers? A lost colony (back story reminiscent of A. Bertram Chandler's Ehrenhaft drive failures). Don't ask why a passenger liner seems to have carried a full set of frozen animal embryos plus the seeds for a mass of food and decorative plants and still had room for passengers.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by jandrew

And, it's absurd to think listening to a book and reading a book are equivalent.

I agree. They're different experiences. Reading is personal. Listening is social. I like seeing the words as I read. (I realize that everyone is different.)

[leebase]

Originally Posted by jandrew

And, it's absurd to think listening to a book and reading a book are equivalent.

Depends on what comparison? If I’ve listened to a novel, I have consumed the story in no worse or better a way than if I read it. If I’ve read a book I don’t listen to the audiobook. And if I’ve listened to a book, I don’t then read it. I’ve already enjoyed the story. I’m not much of a re-reader of books. That’s how Imsee them as equivalent. It’s the same content...unlike a movie based on a book. I regularly watch a movie based on a book I like or read a book where I saw the movie first. They are two different versions of the story. Not so an unabridged audiobook verses se are the same AS it relates to consuming a story.

If one is a adult and thinks that their reading for entertainment is somehow more virtuous than listening or watching...well, I’m glad you’ve found something to make you feel good about yourself.

Me? The accomplishment I feel from reading ended somewhere back in the fourth grade which is the last I remember having SRA's and you measured your accomplishment in ability to read and understand against your peers.

Since then, reading is like breathing. I take no notice of it happening, nor any pride. I also take no pride in tying my shoes any more, nor any other skill I mastered as a child.

This whole active vs passive...it’s all bull spit. Thinking is thinking. Some people might find FOR THEM that one modality of learning suits them better than another. But all learning uses the brain.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I agree. They're different experiences. Reading is personal. Listening is social. I like seeing the words as I read. (I realize that everyone is different.)

Listening to a book by myself is not a social activity. Arguing about whether or not reading and listening to a book....on the internet...THAT is social.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

If I'm baking a cake, it makes absolutely no difference to the outcome if I read the recipe myself, or if I have my mom come over and read it to me.

If I watch a TV show of someone baking a cake, it makes a big difference. They will use different words than the written recipe and might even miss saying the precise amount of an ingredient being used. On the other hand, I will have the opportunity to see their technique and might learn something I wouldn't have gotten from the recipe. But since the content is different, it is just silly to claim they are equivalent.

Bravo. Very clear thinking. There is no moral superiority from learning to cook via reading a cookbook, watching a cooking show, or having your mother teach you how. Learning is learning.

The content of someone reading you a recipe, or you reading the recipe...is the same. Having read it yourself verses having someone read it to you...confers no additional virtue....unless you are a child learning to read.

One adult taking umbrage when another adult says they read a book...when they listened to it instead...is just silly. Silly along the lines of one adult looking down on another adult wearing loafers instead of shoes with laces. An adult shouldn’t feel that tying one’s shoes is anything to see as an accomplishment.