@dancinyogi Listening to an Audiobook is 100% reading in all meaningful sense of the word. It might not be "reading" in the context of a 7 year old child (or any adult) learning to read, but beside that, anyone who already know how to read would consider reading as not just looking at a physical piece of paper, but reading a text, a message, some kind of content written by someone. In that context, which concern anyone past the learning phase, reading on a screen is reading and listening to an audio book is reading. Absorbing a text is reading.
And while we are talking about literature and audio books, let me share this extract from Cyrano de Bergerac who basically predicted audiobooks back in 1657 in his book "The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon".
Roughly translated from French (DeepL + minor corrections from me):
When I opened the box, I found inside a metal je ne sais quoi almost identical to our clocks, full of an infinite number of small springs and imperceptible machines. It's a book indeed, but it's a miraculous book that has neither pages nor characters; in short, it's a book where, to learn, eyes are useless; all you need are ears. When someone wishes to read, he tapes this machine with a large quantity of all sorts of keys, then turns the needle on the chapter he wishes to hear, and at the same time all the distinct and different sounds that serve, between the great lunars, to express language, come out of this nut as from the mouth of a man, or from a musical instrument.When I had reflected on this miraculous invention of making books, I was no longer surprised to see that the young men of that country possessed more knowledge at sixteen and eighteen than the graybeards of ours; for, knowing how to read as soon as they speak, they are never without reading; in the bedroom, out for a walk, in town, on a journey, on foot or on horseback, they may have in their pockets, or hanging from their saddlebags, thirty or so of these books, which they only have to bandage up to hear a single chapter, or several, if they're in the mood to listen to a whole book: so you're eternally surrounded by all the great men, dead and alive, who talk to you by word of mouth.Basically saying, 400 years in advance that audiobook would be a great tool to spread knowledge and the collective literacy of the entire population would improve with such an invention.
And yes, back in 1657, when talking about those mechanical books that somehow make sounds, he was using the word "reading".
Also, "30" books in your pocket, he’s cute.
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