Audiobooks are Just as Good

Audiobooks vs. physical books, many go as far as to say vs. real reading, I do not, I'll try to explain why.

Are audiobook "easier" or "cheating"? Normal reading speed is usually about 2x normal audiobook/talking speed, my opinion is this accounts for a good portion of the gap in relative ease attributed to it with a fair measure more being the amenability to multitasking / distraction. I usually listen to audiobooks at 2x+ speed depending on the content and style of narration (comprehensibility and speaking speed) I find naturally that good comprehension requires a fair amount of attention. As an illustrative example I think I re-listen to passages at a similair frequency to re-reading passages.

You can do other things, it needs to be things that require a limited amount of focus or you will not comprehend, you need to be aware of this if you want to have comprehended what you have read, the exact same thing is true of reading, I have read in a physical several pages on end without comprehending because my mind was elsewhere. You can and should rewind and re-listen or re-read if you were distracted and zone out.

You don't see the text and the structure and it's not the intended form/medium. Non-the-less there are many books where I don't know the precise spelling of their names. Conversely there are words that you read and don't know how to pronounce, after I had read the communist manifesto my brother said bourgeoisie in conversation and I asked him what that meant. Some writing is rhythmic others are written for performance like Shakespeare or originally dictated like paradise lost, as skilled performance actively adds to the experience and potentially to the information content derived from it depending on how a tuned the reader. Some books are meant to be performed, some academic works are derived from lectures or lecture notes (though unfortunately these are rather rarely available as audiobooks).

A large part of the limited multitasking is incidental to the medium, it is not that a physical book intrinsically requires more focus, you can do both while walking for instance. Doing things like dishes, laundry, routine driving, light running to me take roughly 0 brainpower. If not for practicalities around bouncing around, holding it, sweat I reckon I could read a physical book similarly well to listen to an audio book while running or on a stationary bike. Likewise while it may be a meaningless counterfactual if not for the interference of usage of my visual sensory apparatus I reckon while I am doing routine driving I could muster the spare focus to read. (With emphasis this is not encouragement or endorsement or a statement of anything I have or will ever do)¹.

All of this is to say that difference in level of focus required is not intrinsic. There is however a difference in the level of effort on account of the requirement of reading a physical book being a relatively exclusive activity. This does make having say read a given or give set of books more impressive for having physically read them, but if the point is comprehending and engaging with the content of the books than the matter of the effort mustered is quite besides it. So it is more praiseworthy or impressive but only for the purpose of praise/impressiveness you put more work in you excluded more other things you could have also been doing if you read the same things on audiobook. Which if you are concerned with your attention span and your ability to sit and do something or signaling the same might be valuable. But if you are say concerned with knowing the things in the books, experienced reading the books, being well read, it can be accomplished just as well with audiobooks, and if you have other reasonably multitask-able things competing for your time, better.