Reading audiobooks is still reading.
If you say you read an audiobook you don't have to "correct" yourself. I'd argue that you /shouldn't/, that you'd get less correct.
There's no need to say "well no I didn't read it" if it was an audiobook. There's no need to put "reading" in scare quotes.
It's reading just as much as reading print is.
I know there are worse problems, but it sucks having my favored reading format denigrated by sighted people, even to the point of them denying it's "real."
For the avoidance of doubt (I think I've just been softblocked over this??), I am not saying that visual and aural reading are identical. As a partially-sighted person with typical hearing, I find one modality much easier than the other!
I'm not making a point about sensory input. You can prefer one to the other! That's fine! This is a call to action, to stop saying and to watch out for others saying that audiobooks aren't "real" or don't "count" or are somehow inferior to print. That's all.
@bright_helpings
I've recently switched to mostly audiobooks and still struggling a bit with calling it reading but it's not that I think audiobooks are less valid (I grew up with listening to books read aloud as being a normal form of experiencing books), it's more like that I think of reading as the process of deciphering text, and so there are two perfectly valid ways of experiencing a book, reading and listening.
I am still making the switch but I grudge a bit just saying "I listened to X book" isn't just a good way to say it that adds information on how I experienced the book.
@bright_helpings Audiobooks might be a great format for illiterate people to read books. 🤔
I've never seen anybody from the west discuss illiteracy as an accessibility problem.
A lot of people from my grandparents' generation born right after independence, especially women, never learnt to read and write because the new government didn't construct the schools yet. Still they were well informed of the news through radio broadcasts.
@njoseph @bright_helpings Or even learn to read.
I think illiteracy is seen in the same way as poverty in the west - an inherent moral failing. With all of the convenient secondary effects that keep things just the way they are.
Maybe a couple of pirate radio stations of people just reading the news (sort of like a clandestine, shadow news network) is something to consider.
Where I grew up in rural Sweden when audiobooks where expensive, multi-tape affairs, to lend them at the library you had to pay a fee unless you had an accessibility reason. Illiteracy was an accepted such reason. Also my friend currently works for the Swedish Agency for Accessible Media and they absolutely see illiteracy as an accessibility issue. ♥
@Shrigglepuss @bright_helpings
Yeah, I believe the insecurity may come from the meaning of reading as interpreting something (symbols as letters, etc.) in your head, which is not done with audio. That's why (I believe) nobody would ever say "I touched this braille book" to say they read it, 'cause there's clearly an interpretation phase (which is not done just by touching) before the required parsing of the language itself.
The core problem imho is assuming reading as a superior activity.
@bright_helpings I like to specify that I listened to an audiobook under some circumstances because I feel that the performance brings something extra to the text, but I still count those books as "read."
As I think about that, I realize that I rarely comment on the physical forms of books I read in print versions. Maybe because so many I read now are ebooks and the formatting isn't as obvious. There are some physical books I have to talk about because they're so beautiful it also influences me
@stelepami There's nothing wrong with talking about the format of a book you read, I have Opinions on audiobook narrators and the physical experience of how print books smell/look/feel/etc.
I'm not saying no one should ever comment on how they read a book, just that it's not good to say some formats "count" as reading and some don't.
@bright_helpings I didn't interpret your original post as discouraging discussion of different format experiences at all! I felt compelled to jump in with My Important and Unsolicited Opinion to explain the choices in language I use when I talk about different book formats.
All formats are awesome in their own ways! Many have different drawbacks for different individuals. It's so cool that there are multiple options for consuming books! Yayyyy!
A large part of the stigma with audio books is how they were often abridged versions of the full text, sometimes with surprising liberties. (For example, the 1989 audiobook of A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES read by Arte Johnson has some jarring edits that omit key scenes.) But in this digital era, where running lengths aren't limited by cassette-reel sizes, that's a legacy issue and you're right that it should be dismissed.
@bright_helpings Huzzah! Audio has been my preferred long-form information consuming method for several years now
Audio frees up my hands for other work, so it's great for tasks that don't require too much cranial interaction
To add more notes on the same theme: People often want to default to narrower semantic definitions.
It's worth keeping in mind that "read" started out in English with an even wider range of semantics (originally as "advise") than it currently has, one of the main one beings "interpret, decipher". And that, connected to the "decipher" sense, it's in fact cognate with "riddle".
@emacsomancer my senior seminar when I was trying to do an English degree was on Old English riddles. I really loved them.
And yes, one of my utterly pointless pet peeves that I can't seem to rid myself of is people calling Aethelred "the Unready" (a strangely common throwaway reference in Britain), when it was nothing to do with the modern word ready but should be something more like "ill-advised."
@bright_helpings Old English riddles are lovely! @cadadr and I were talking about them a few weeks ago in connection with one of his own riddle poems.
(Yeah, I have the same peeve about Aethelred's moniker.)
@bright_helpings Audiobooks are just a logical extension of being read to, which bring education and thought to situations where visual reading is impossible or impractical, and the practice has a long tradition in enterntainment, education, and social organization. People who dis audiobooks are not welcome in my foxhole.
See also the important history of El Lector de Tobacco
https://loudreaders.com/LOUDREADERS
@roadriverrail @bright_helpings
And "silent reading" as a dominant practice is a fairly recent development, in the longer view of human history.
@roadriverrail I mean silent reading is of course potentially useful in lots of cases - particularly in terms of speed. But there are lots of things which just don't even make sense in this fashion. Poetry: how does one really appreciate poetry in silent reading form?
@Cyborgneticz haha that is some librarian superpowers!
I was a real jerk about this as a kid too, despite/because of benefiting from audiobooks (internalized ableism is a hell of a thing!), I think we've all been there. Glad we're not any more. :)
Thanks for making this point. I dont consume audio books, but I like that if I did, that would be called reading.
( your toot made me think or even changed my thinking, thanks again for it!)
@bright_helpings tbh im not sure why the verb matters so much? i wouldn't say i read a video (although thinking about it, a genetic verb for "consumed media" would be nice).
does anyone really put more meaning behind it than just semantics?
For the avoidance of doubt (I think I've just been softblocked over this??), I am not saying that visual and aural reading are identical. As a partially-sighted person with typical hearing, I find one modality much easier than the other! I'm not making a point about sensory input. You can prefer one to the other! That's fine! This is a call to action, to stop saying and to watch out for others saying that audiobooks aren't "real" or don't "count" or are somehow inferior to print. That's all.
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