Is Listening to an Audiobook Reading?
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Are you impressed with adults who read 100 books or more per year? I was once, too, until one day, someone mentioned it was audiobooks that they were reading.
What?! Since when does listening to a book qualify for reading a book? There can be dangerous consequences to misusing language like this.
THE PROBLEM
Let's examine the problem. We'll start by defining what we mean by "reading a book."
Reading, as in what we teach children when they first go to school, is a skill that involves the eyes and both sides of the brain. Using our eyes, we look at the printed words on a page and decipher their meaning to understand what the writer is communicating.
"I read" is an action verb that says I am in the active state of reading a book using my sense of sight.
We have other grammatical uses for the word, such as in the gerund "a poetry reading." We also have the infinitive: "I went home to read." We can use the word metphorically as in “I read the writing on the wall.”
But to say that you read a book, as in the verb, “I read,” when you listened to the book is to use the word ambiguously. Using words ambiguously confuses the meaning, so we understand something to be what it is not or something to not be what it is.
Manipulating the use of language is the art and science of propaganda. Propagandists get people to believe things that are untrue by twisting and reframing language in a way that deceives us.
Not that there is an intent to deceive people about how many books someone read last year, but it is deceptive. Why do we have a separate term for blind people who read with their hands if it weren't?
When blind people read with their hands, we call it Braille, so we don't confuse it with reading using our eyes.
THE SOLUTION
If people want to "read" with their ears, it needs its own term to avoid confusion.
It would mislead people to say that our three-year-old read Peter Rabbit when we read the book to our child. When we watch a film based on a novel, we don't say we read the book. Before television, when people listened to books read over the radio, they didn't say they read the book. We would never listen to a podcast and say we read the podcast.
None of this would make sense if we did.
Why then is it suddenly okay to say something like, "I read The Power of Regret," when the truth is that I listened to Daniel Pink read it on Audible books? (It was a good listen!)
And then there’s the argument that some people are auditory learners and some people are visual learners. Yet, the Multiple Learning Styles has never been proven, and educated people have always read books. Skills are something we develop. Listening is a skill and so is reading.
“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
Here's the problem with replacing listening with reading: when half of the country's adult population cannot read at a sixth-grade level, stretching the concept of reading to include audiobooks will not help things.
When we believe listening to an audiobook is reading, we can deny having a literacy problem. You might ask, "What does it matter if we read with our eyes or listen with our ears? We are getting the same information."
It matters for a few reasons.
Language Matters
We have words with precise definitions to facilitate our communication with one another. If you use a word one way, and I am using it another, neither of us understands the other.
While you might argue that language naturally changes over time, it does, but not in ways that don't make sense.
I'd also love to boast reading 100 books a year, but it takes time to read a serious book. I could listen to 150 books in a year while cooking, cleaning, and driving, but reading Tacitus, that's another story.
Reading Matters
Some words come into vogue and go out of vogue, but the altering of reality concerns me. Saying we are reading when in fact, we are listening has its repercussions.
Regardless of how many people listen to audiobooks, Americans read less than the global average.
Our children need to learn how to read challenging books, and so do we. Competent reading is a skill we develop to gain access to the world of literature, both ancient and modern.
Skilled reading allows us to read original sources and conduct research, so we can think for ourselves rather than let others think for us. Reading fires up our brains much more than listening, so reading helps to keep our minds strong. Reading is a pleasant way to spend one’s leisure time. Reading makes us smarter by improving our minds. And what about the smell of a book, the feel of a book, the look of a book?
We have a lot of debate about language these days, but when we examine the cause for the disputes, it's because we ignore common sense.
If reading involves the eyes and listening involves the ears, then when we listen to a book being read by someone else, it is safe to say we are not reading it.
If listening is listening, then it can't be reading. If our Americans (and Brits) read below the global average, correcting the problem by listening to audiobooks will not fix it.
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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.
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☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.
