In One Ear and Out the Other: Debunking the Allure of Audiobooks

A few years ago, I was at a meeting of my former book club. We were discussing our prior month’s selection when one of the women commented, “I listened to it all week and really enjoyed it.” It was a particularly intense and tedious novel that I remember finding pretentious, but I resentfully plugged through it nonetheless as our meeting was looming. 

Listened to it? I quietly steamed. This book was torture! And I read it. Every page. Not to mention all the neglected books by my bed and all the ones waiting on the bookshelf like an heir to the throne beyond the 1^st in line; they just know it is pointless holding out. The ones on the bedside table just keep reproducing before the ones on the shelf even get a shot. 

Of course, I had to say something. Audio books are fine for road trips or going on walks, but for a book club? Should we change the name to A READING CLUB just to clear up any confusion? The one who listened to it claimed it was the same as reading. The same? That’s like saying smelling food is the same as tasting it. Someone telling you a bedtime story is not the same as reading before you go to bed. 

It just isn’t.

For me, being the control freak that I am, I don’t want someone telling me what Mr. Darcy sounds like unless they are offering up Colin Firth circa 1995 on a silver platter. When you read you are not only seeing the words, how they relate to one another and absorbing how they are spelled but you control the pace at which you do this. Your own imagination guides the imagery that is created. It is your voice in your head interpreting the story, not someone else’s. Also, reading is active – it is an activity whereas listening to an audiobook is passive. 

Discover magazine has a slightly different take however. “In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers from the Gallant Lab at UC Berkeley scanned the brains of nine participants while they read and listened to a series of tales from The Moth Radio Hour. After analyzing how each word was processed in the brain’scortex, they created maps of the participants’ brains, noting the different areas helped interpret the meaning of each word… Looking at the brain scans and data analysis, the researchers saw that the stories stimulated the same cognitive and emotional areas, regardless of their medium. It’s adding to our understanding of how our brains give semantic meaning to the squiggly letters and bursts of sound that make up our communication.” 

Meaning that the stories stimulated the brain in the same way. Yes, the brain was stimulated. But that doesn’t mean that you are gaining as much from listening as from reading.

Studies have shown comparable comprehension rates between reading and listening to books. Which is great. But the root of the issue is what are you trying to accomplish? Is it something to check off a list or is reading – the journey of reading  – the goal unto itself? 

I write down every book I read in a book journal. It is a way for me to keep track of what I have read and what I can recommend to others. It is also some form of accomplishment I suppose when at the end of the year I count them up and tell myself that I have read 56 books. Or whatever the number is that year. But I never count the audio books. Never. Why? Because I didn’t read them.

The act of reading is a quiet one. Solitary. Not that you can’t read with others. I read next to my husband every night before bed. I read with my daughter outside or on the sofas. I read on planes, trains, and in waiting rooms. I read the second I get into my seat on a plane. It also signals to others that I am otherwise occupied. Because I am. In this solitude, we can disappear into stories or research. Into foreign lands or someone else’s life. It is in the quiet that we find ourselves. 

I greatly value audiobooks for aiding those who cannot read. It opens a world that might have sadly remained closed. But for those who can read, I cannot recommend it enough. 

Because at the end of the day, some stories are meant to be seen, and not heard.