Does the value of reading lie in READING?

[Gori the Grey]

There's a commercial for an audiobook company.

It starts out, in a solemn voice, "studies have found that what separates successful people from unsuccessful is that successful people read more."

Next sentence: "so listen to our audiobooks."

Does the value of reading (whatever it might lend to a person being more successful (whatever that might mean)) lie in just absorbing the content that is in books (as one could do by listening to them) or does it lie in the actual physical/mental process of reading words off a page?

As soon as the commercial switched to a sales pitch for audiobooks, I thought to myself "well that's not reading; any benefits that those studies show come from reading won't come from listening to books." But was that reaction just because I'm a fuddy-duddy, who started my life of reading before there were audiobooks?

Your thoughts?

 

[Synobun]

My brain can't process speech if I'm doing something else unrelated to that speech. An audiobook would be beyond useless for me.

I don't have this issue with reading.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There's a commercial for an audiobook company.

It starts out, in a solemn voice, "studies have found that what separates successful people from unsuccessful is that successful people read more."

Next sentence: "so listen to our audiobooks."

Does the value of reading (whatever it might lend to a person being more successful (whatever that might mean)) lie in just absorbing the content that is in books (as one could do by listening to them) or does it lie in the actual physical/mental process of reading words off a page?

As soon as the commercial switched to a sales pitch for audiobooks, I thought to myself "well that's not reading; any benefits that those studies show come from reading won't come from listening to books." But was that reaction just because I'm a fuddy-duddy, who started my life of reading before there were audiobooks?

Your thoughts?

Listening to audiobooks is not reading. It's being read to, which is not the same.

I have some audiobooks - most on cassette (Star Trek) and one or two on CD (Amazon's mistake in sending the CD instead of the book, but since it's more trouble to return it, I just kept the thing). What I found out is that in many cases, audiobooks put me to sleep. So I learned that if I had insomnia, Arthur C. Clarke reading his own stories would do the trick, as his reading voice was really dry.

I keep a couple of books by the bed, and am currently working my way through the second novel in the Outlander series... a few pages at a time, because that's all it takes to relax me enough to sleep. At this rate I might finish the book by spring (spring as defined here in Central Alberta, not the calendar, as March is still winter here) or even later.

I've heard that the more senses you use when learning something, the better you will learn it. Listening to audiobooks is passive; you're really not doing anything other than maybe listening. Reading a book involves sight and touch; you see the words on the page, you turn the pages, and your mind is at work making up imagery to go along with what you're reading. In some cases the sense of smell is at work, too. Some kinds of paper have a very distinctive smell, some pleasant and others unpleasant.

 

[Berzerker]

I imagine there is a benefit to actually reading, kinda like the difference between listening to music and playing it. Kinda

 

[civvver]

I honestly don't think it matters. It's all about how much info you consume and retain. I think the effectiveness depends on the individual. There's this chart about how hearing info makes you retain it better but I'm pretty sure it's bogus.

https://www.worklearning.com/2006/05/01/people_remember/

I think really you're more seeing the effect than the cause. Motivated, driven people tend to seek out information on topics that interest them or on stuff they want to do, while less motivated people will settle for being entertained. I think it has to do more with the knowledge people have than the means they acquire it. For most of recent history reading has been the best avenue of acquiring knowledge.

 

[Berzerker]

I'd prefer lying back and listening, closing my eyes and relaxing and trying to focus on the spoken word... Reading's a bit tough on my eyes, definitely small print from a book. At least on the internet I can magnify print easier. The benefit I was considering is the brain's decipherment of the written word, researchers are looking into how people with alzheimers get more benefit from 'exercising' their brains. Even video games might help.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The benefit I was considering is the brain's decipherment of the written word

That's kind of my sense of it. That any value for your mind lies here.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Listening to audiobooks is not reading. It's being read to, which is not the same.

People from the Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, and pretty much every period excepting like, the last 50 years, would probably disagree with you on that.

That being said, reading a thing tends to result in better information-retention than being told it. So if the objective is to learn things then reading is better than listening. But then I think you're missing (or overlooking) a nuance in the argument they're trying to make. If you are a person who enjoys reading then the audiobook service has literally nothing to offer you. Why pay them for the honor of having a heavily reduced library to choose from when you could just go buy the book yourself on amazon, or borrow it from the library. The audiobook service is for people who either can't or won't read. So if you're coming from the principle that 1: reading is better than not reading, and 2: if not for audiobooks people subscribing to the service would not read, then it surely follows that audiobooks are a better alternative than not reading at all, even if an audiobook were, say, only half as effective as reading the thing yourself. Which is, I believe, the unsaid assumption being made in the commercial you mentioned.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I imagine there is a benefit to actually reading, kinda like the difference between listening to music and playing it. Kinda

When I was doing my Western Board of Music organ exams, I realized I would have to train my hands, fingers, and feet to know what to do, since I first learned to play by ear rather than by reading music. I didn't want to risk messing everything up if I got distracted and lost my place, so it would only work if I essentially made the keys, stops, and pedals an extension of my body. I knew things were working when I concentrated so hard I forgot to breathe and nothing else was real except the music and that it was finally correct. It's a different state of consciousness, almost, when everything comes together.

When I want to retain the aural memory of a piece of music I force myself to concentrate on nothing but that music. That meant no other music - no TV, no radio, no records, no cassettes. Thirty years later, I retain a lot more of those exam pieces than I'd expected to. One of my teachers said that some students just forget it as soon as they finish the exam, but to me that's like throwing away those months spent in 2-4 hour daily practice sessions.

To this day I can still remember exactly what some of the music and songs sounded like from the musicals I was part of when I worked in theatre 35+ years ago. I used to be able to mentally replay the entirety of Jesus Christ Superstar in my head. And I don't watch any other version of JCS (some of our singers were definitely better than their movie counterparts).

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think really you're more seeing the effect than the cause. Motivated, driven people tend to seek out information on topics that interest them or on stuff they want to do, while less motivated people will settle for being entertained. I think it has to do more with the knowledge people have than the means they acquire it. For most of recent history reading has been the best avenue of acquiring knowledge.

audiobooks are a better alternative than not reading at all, even if an audiobook were, say, only half as effective as reading the thing yourself. Which is, I believe, the unsaid assumption being made in the commercial you mentioned.

Yeah, I'm not really evaluating the claims made by the commercial. It just made me aware of a bias I have: that the benefits one's mind gets from reading come from the decipherment of words and syntax, etc. that Berzerker talks about, rather than any information acquired by the process--which of course has its own value toward "success."

 

[Birdjaguar]

Reading is an active activity where the reader is fully engaged in the text. Listening is a passive activity that allows the mind to wander at will. They are not the same at all. I am less sure about whether one is better than the other for content retention.

Disclaimer: I read books. Audio books don't work for me at all because I cannot control the pace of the process. It's too passive for me.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Yeah, I'm not really evaluating the claims made by the commercial. It just made me aware of a bias I have: that the benefits one's mind gets from reading come from the decipherment of words and syntax, etc. that Berzerker talks about, rather than any information acquired by the process--which of course has its own value toward "success."

But that same deciphering happens when you hear the language vocalized. You still have to parse the morphology and analyze the syntax just as you would were you reading it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There is a good reason for listening to a show or movie instead of watching it... if you want to write your own stories based on that show or movie. It annoys me when I pick up a novel or fanfic and the characters' dialogue sounds artificial or out of character. Some characters have very distinctive ways of speaking, whether it's their vocabulary, their dialect or accent, or how fast or slow they speak.

I've written a lot of fanfic based on the '90s TV series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven. I wanted to get the characters' dialogue exactly right, so I put in the videotapes and listened to the episodes without watching them. Some characters didn't speak in complete sentences. Some dropped the "g" in "ing" words. Others spoke more formally. It was a challenge for me to deliberately write dialogue that didn't include complete sentences, and other ungrammatical ways of speaking, but it was a challenge worth meeting. I'm more confident now that I can handle dialogue for a wider variety of characters.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But that same deciphering happens when you hear the language vocalized. You still have to parse the morphology and analyze the syntax just as you would were you reading it.

But one uses the eyes and the other the ears. Are they both processed in the same part of the brain?

 

[CurtSibling]

To say I love reading is an understatement, and I also really enjoy audio books when working at my PC.
I think taking the data on board is important, not the actual method of intake.

Just completed a huge run of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes audio shows from the 1940s...
My brain was twitching with joy after it.

 

[Yeekim]

Reading is significantly faster.

 

[Berzerker]

People from the Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, and pretty much every period excepting like, the last 50 years, would probably disagree with you on that.

I imagine they weren't just listening to someone but were watching them 'act' it out which adds to the experience. Course the illiterate needed to listen and watch and the pros charged with the task of conveying information had to memorize it so they were free to use their bodies in the performance. I keep getting the image of Mad Max being taught the origin story of the kids in Beyond Thunder Dome. There are some things we get from watching and listening we cant always get from reading.

 

[Yeekim]

I imagine they weren't just listening to someone but were watching them 'act' it out which adds to the experience.

Not necessarily.
Afaik, books being expensive, a lot of formal education often relied on teachers reading to their students, rather than students reading for themselves.
Nobility frequently had someone read to them, even if they were literate themselves.
Also, I recall it was customary for some knightly orders to have someone read chronicles and such to others at designated meal times.
I'm sure there are a lot of examples like this.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

People from the Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, and pretty much every period excepting like, the last 50 years, would probably disagree with you on that.

LOL. I was alive 50 years ago. In fact 50 years ago was when I started learning to read, at age 4. My family figured that if I was that interested in books, they might as well teach me to read for myself. It was certainly a big help when I went to school, to have a head start.

I maintain that being read to and reading for yourself are not the same. When I was being read to, the amount of material being read, and how it was read - or even if it was read at all - were not under my control. Before I could read, I had no idea if I was getting the whole story or if some parts were being skipped.

That being said, reading a thing tends to result in better information-retention than being told it. So if the objective is to learn things then reading is better than listening. But then I think you're missing (or overlooking) a nuance in the argument they're trying to make. If you are a person who enjoys reading then the audiobook service has literally nothing to offer you. Why pay them for the honor of having a heavily reduced library to choose from when you could just go buy the book yourself on amazon, or borrow it from the library. The audiobook service is for people who either can't or won't read. So if you're coming from the principle that 1: reading is better than not reading, and 2: if not for audiobooks people subscribing to the service would not read, then it surely follows that audiobooks are a better alternative than not reading at all, even if an audiobook were, say, only half as effective as reading the thing yourself. Which is, I believe, the unsaid assumption being made in the commercial you mentioned.

1. Where did I say that audiobooks are an objectively bad thing? If you like them, use them. But don't say you're actually reading the book, because you're not. You're listening to it.

2. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy being read to. I enjoyed it a lot, which is why my family decided to give themselves a break and teach me to read. I was a bit too enthusiastic at times with "Grandma/Mom/Grandad/Daddy, will you read me a story?".

I have fond memories of being read to, and my grandmother didn't give it up entirely after I could read. I still remember her reading me Anne of Green Gables and Singing Wheels.

3. Not sure what commercial you're talking about. I didn't mention it.

I imagine they weren't just listening to someone but were watching them 'act' it out which adds to the experience. Course the illiterate needed to listen and watch and the pros charged with the task of conveying information had to memorize it so they were free to use their bodies in the performance.

True enough. There was a guy in the local SCA branch who was pretty good at describing the more notable heavy sword fights in the tournaments he attended, even though he himself was an archer and fencer, instead of a heavy fighter who used a sword and shield. He'd act out some of the moves, and I can still hear how he'd say "THWACKETA!" when emphasizing the specifics of how a particular fight had happened.

He was a good storyteller in other ways, too. Of course he sometimes went too far... and not only recommended the first novel in a series about a Polish engineer who accidentally time-traveled back in time to the 13th century, but basically described the whole damn book, so by the time the rest of us read it, we already knew how everything turned out.

It was nice to have a bit of leverage by the time the 3rd book in the series came out. I got my hands on it before he did, and the next time he started making disparaging cracks about my cats (he hated cats), I told him to be quiet or I'd tell him every detail of the third novel.

Not necessarily.
Afaik, books being expensive, a lot of formal education often relied on teachers reading to their students, rather than students reading for themselves.
Nobility frequently had someone read to them, even if they were literate themselves.
Also, I recall it was customary for some knightly orders to have someone read chronicles and such to others at designated meal times.
I'm sure there are a lot of examples like this.

Yeah, it was basically their equivalent of turning the radio on.

 

[Zack]

Audiobooks are, in the most literal and technical sense, not reading - but it is functionally equivalent. I personally prefer reading, but I don't think there's really any more value, it's just my preferred method (and much cheaper ).

In a more general sense, and at the risk of going on a tangent, no. Assuming you are already proficient at reading and writing, which are important skills, there's nothing that makes books inherently better than a movie or tv show or whatever. They're different mediums and excel at different things, and any argument that implies reading a random Dan Brown novel is more intellectual than watching something like Mad Men or The Wire is just silly. There's value (and crap) to be found in any medium.