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I love audiobooks and consume them frequently but I personally don't call it reading. It doesn't feel like the same activity to me. What do you think?

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[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

They are not comparable. Reading requires focus and attention where listening can be passive. Readers control the pace of information intake and will pause and backtrack to reread passages and digest. Listeners rarely do this.

My understanding of the literature is that reading wins in a slam dunk for comprehension of difficult material under natural conditions. For simple material The differences are minimal. The more constrained the conditions become e.g. having the experimenter control the pace of reading the way the narrator controls the pace of listening, then those differences begin to disappear. Similarly if you prevent readers from skipping back to reread passages then comprehension drops.

Whether listening works for you depends on your goals. If it's entertainment during a commute why not? If you are learning the tax code for an upcoming certification exam I'd crack the books.