cosmolinguist | What is reading? (Reply)

The survey also found that most Britons (53%) don’t consider listening to an audiobook to be equivalent to having read that same book. Just 29% said that they think of listening to audiobooks to be the same as reading...

Okay.

I don't think it's a very well-worded question.

I don't think audiobooks are "the same" because I prefer to read some kinds of books as audio and others as ebooks.

I think a good narrator can add a lot to a book. (I can't imagine the Murderbot series without Kevin R. Free's amazing narration.

I also love Scott Brick as an audiobook reader, he's a big reason that a book about salt has become a comfort re-read for me.I can't imagine the Murderbot series without Kevin R. Free's amazing narration. I also love Scott Brick as an audiobook reader, he's a big reason that a book about salt has become a comfort re-read for me. Both Nigel Planer and Stephen Briggs make Terry Pratchett books better.)

But I don't think that's what people mean here.

I think at least some of those people are saying that audiobooks aren't as good as reading. They're not "real" reading.

And I think that because people regularly say that audiobooks "don't count."

Some of this is the same kind of snobbishness that doesn't even "count" ebooks as "real."

But some of it is specifically ableism.

The article keeps referring to books "read or listened to." The implication is that these aren't the same. Listening isn't reading.

I actually wonder what would happen if braille was explicitly included. Like we don't say that braille users touched a book, we still say they read it.