No, because listening to someone else read the book adds the readers inflections and nuances that influence your perception of what the book says. OK for science/text books, but not for pleasure reads. What you hear is actually a different book than you would read with your own mental massaging. It might be very close, but never exact. When you discuss a book you've read with someone who has also read it what do you talk about? The other persons take on different parts if not the whole book. You want to see if they got the same message, the same feeling from it.

I don't mind if people want to say it's a different experience, but I definitely take umbrage when people claim that it's a lesser (usually the implication is somehow less intellectual) experience.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

What you hear is actually a different book than you would read with your own mental massaging. It might be very close, but never exact.

It's true that a voiceactor may give a particular spin on a character, but 1.) people who regularly listen to audiobooks also regularly judge those voiceactors, because they are still forming something different in their mind based on the words, and 2.) the voiceactor quite often brings more to the story than the reader may have been able to come up with on their own. It's like saying reading a movie script is better than watching the movie because it leaves everything to your imagination--maybe you're not as good as the professional cinematographer, you know?
 

I watch Youtube videos all the time and I have learned a lot that way.

I feel the need to be literal, so find it hard to consider listening to an audio book as "reading" .....but then blind people can't interpret printed words on a page either. -would we say they can only read if they are able to interpret Braille?

I guess audio books bypass the interpretation part of  converting squiggles or dots on a page into meaningful information?  So is "reading" about interpretation or comprehension?

monster wrote:

What about the cognitive exercise of the act of reading?  Current studies are suggesting a correlation between reading and ,maintaining cognitive acuity in old age*.  I'm not sure I'd buy listening to books as an equivalent substitute in this instance.  It's not about nuance or understanding.... ???

*  I will try to find some publicly available sources, but don't have the oomph rn

No need to find sources, I'm convinced on the positive effects on reading in old age... But also, doing logic puzzles helps in old age, so does keeping regular exercise, having an active social life, etc. etc. I'm not aware of any studies on listening to audiobooks in old age, but I strongly suspect they have a similar positive effect, because really it's just about keeping yourself engaged and not giving up on life.

On the other hand, there are plenty of old people who sit and stare at the TV all day, and they're very much not engaged in the world. At its best, active listening is just as mentally engaging as anything else, but I suppose one could argue that it's easier to slip into passive listening or not-really-listening-at-all, compared to that thing where your eyes have been moving but you suddenly realize you haven't actually been paying attention to the words for the last several paragraphs. So maybe in that sense audio books could risk being less mentally stimulating, depending on the user. On the other hand, there are better treatments for decrepit hearing than decrepit sight, and for a lot of old people, listening to books is the only realistic way they're going to be able to continue to consume them at all.
 

Clodfobble wrote:

monster wrote:

What about the cognitive exercise of the act of reading?  Current studies are suggesting a correlation between reading and ,maintaining cognitive acuity in old age*.  I'm not sure I'd buy listening to books as an equivalent substitute in this instance.  It's not about nuance or understanding.... ???

*  I will try to find some publicly available sources, but don't have the oomph rn

No need to find sources, I'm convinced on the positive effects on reading in old age... But also, doing logic puzzles helps in old age, so does keeping regular exercise, having an active social life, etc. etc. I'm not aware of any studies on listening to audiobooks in old age, but I strongly suspect they have a similar positive effect, because really it's just about keeping yourself engaged and not giving up on life.

On the other hand, there are plenty of old people who sit and stare at the TV all day, and they're very much not engaged in the world. At its best, active listening is just as mentally engaging as anything else, but I suppose one could argue that it's easier to slip into passive listening or not-really-listening-at-all, compared to that thing where your eyes have been moving but you suddenly realize you haven't actually been paying attention to the words for the last several paragraphs. So maybe in that sense audio books could risk being less mentally stimulating, depending on the user. On the other hand, there are better treatments for decrepit hearing than decrepit sight, and for a lot of old people, listening to books is the only realistic way they're going to be able to continue to consume them at all.
 

All very good points -no argument here.