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Are audiobooks real reading?
I love an audiobook as much as the next guy.
Audiobooks are convenient. You can consume a book on the go. Whilst driving, at your job or even when working out you can indulge in the written word without having to put your life on hold.
But are audiobooks real reading? I don’t think so.
Recently I’ve rekindled my appetite for reading and I tell you, there’s nothing quite like the physicality of a book.
A book is something you can see, touch and feel. It’s real. The words are right there in front of you. In plain sight. Black and white.
You can take your time with a book. Read and reread sentences. Allow paragraphs to soak in. Meditate over the meaning, contemplate what the writer is saying.
Audiobooks, they beam the message into your mind, usually while you’re distracted by something else. Books allow you to digest the information in your own time.
Are books better than audiobooks? It’s hard to say. They both serve different purposes.
Ideally, they should be used together.
An audiobook to play throughout the day, keep the mind ticking over, and a book on your downtime, when you can sit down and think, really take it all in and study the words.
For now, during lockdown, I’m enjoying the process of reading. But no doubt, when the world opens up again and life goes back to ‘normal’, I’ll be finding a way to merge the two.
So, what do you think; are audiobooks real reading and which do you prefer?
