Hello my fellow page turners and wordsmiths,

Now most of us love books, but even us book lovers are finding the opportunity to read even in our current Lockdown culture can be a challenge. Therefore audio-books, are a convenient alternative to the old fashion ink and paper reading. You can listen to the latest best sellers whilst cleaning your house, getting supplies and even by doing some D.I.Y. 

“But is listening to a book really the same as reading one?”

There have been a number of studies on this subject over the past 10 years or so. However there is no definitive answer to the question as it depends on the purpose for your reading.

For example physical books have been found to be a better teaching aid to that of an audio book. This is because a person’s level of comprehension is greater when dealing with a physical text over a podcast or audio book. This is because it’s simpler to clarify a point by re reading rather than stopping the recording, setting it back the appropriate amount and then resuming it. This is also the case when you zone out, as whether we’re reading or listening to a text, our minds occasionally wander.  This can happen for seconds or even minutes before we snap out of our mental stupor and refocus ourselves. When this happens it’s a lot easier to find the point at which you zoned out in a book, to where you zoned out listening to a recording.The final factor, that influences your comprehension and retention scales firmly in favour of reading, is that when we do do usually we are not multi-tasking where if you are listening to an audio book you are usually doing multiple tasks at once.

However if you are only using audio books for leisure, the comparison usually comes down to personal preference, I for one despite using audio books will always put ink and paper over a recording as I like to have tangible books, the feel, and smell are all part of the reading experience.

What are your views on audio books?


Until next time, read more books!

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