The Great Audiobook Debate

It's the start of 2021. People have spent the best part of the past year struggling, each in their own ways, with a somewhat different existence to that which they've grown accustomed to.

While we could spend hours talking about all the ways in which this is terrible (and believe me, it has been), it may do us a little more good to dwell on one reason it has benefitted us. 2020 was a year of trying new things: new ways of spending our time, new skills we could teach ourselves at home, new methods of keeping ourselves sane over never-ending months of solitude.

One form of entertainment which has seen a notable increase in popularity over these months is audiobooks.

Audiobooks are not a new invention. They have been available to the general public since the 1970s: companies such as 'Voice Over Books', 'Books on Tape', and 'Recorded Books' all appeared in the decade. 'Audible', the app we all know and love, has been around since 1995. Yup. Twenty-six years. That's the same year the first Toy Story hit cinemas.

According to a recent article, already linked above, "the average audiobook users are affluent men, aged between 18 and 34 years old... men, far more than women, listen to audiobooks while working, commuting, and running outdoors". We could spend a whole day unpacking that. We are not going to. But it's worth bearing in mind, as context to everything else I'm about to say.

The point is, audiobooks have been popular recently. Do they come with the same clout as telling someone you've finished reading a whole book?

Yes and no.

Spoilers: it's mostly yes.

I read a lot of books. Recently, I have also started listening to a lot of books. Personally, I'm still more of a reader: I can put the pictures together far faster in my mind than anyone could read them aloud, and I love the all-consuming feeling of being deep into that personal visualisation, the fictional world breathing and thrumming in time with your body. There's a thrill to that - one which is not absent from the audiobook scene, but is certainly not as intense.

Why is this? Well, as with any good answer, there's several reasons. Firstly, most people listen to audiobooks while undertaking other activities. You're more likely to miss minor details or descriptions than you are when reading, so you do not get the same thorough experience. Secondly, the words you're listening to are always going to be an interpretation - the narrator and/or actors (depending on the audiobook) stand as a third party between you and the author. You are listening to the words how they have decided they are to be spoken. This does not directly affect the plot, of course, but it can influence our understanding of it. Characters can come off as a little more timid, or aggressive, or authentic - any numbers of things - all depending on how they are played. Thus, our feelings towards them are different. The plot plays out. Our hearts are in a different orientation to how they might have been, if the words were given our full imagination.

Reading, on the other hand, takes time. You cannot multitask while reading a book (unless you are miraculously skilled, in which case, I applaud you). The words rely on the full force of your skill to bring them to life inside your mind.

This is, perhaps, why "I read a book" seems to carry more weight to it than "I listened to an audiobook".

It should not. This is an antiquated view of how stories should be consumed by the public, and may actually be serving to harm the book-lovers community. In the modern world, multitasking is an unfortunate necessity. The world moves faster than we'd like it to. Time flies, and we haven't even stopped for lunch. When do you expect to fit reading into a life like that?

Audiobooks open the possibility of fiction (or, if it's more your thing, non-fiction) to a multitude of people who would not otherwise be able to engage with books on any level. This is not just true of people who lead busy lives, or need to occupy their mind while stuck working from home. It's equally, and historically, true for those with dyslexia, among other conditions such as ADHD which make it hard to focus on blocks of printed words. This is particularly true of children, though it's important to note difficulty early in life is likely to turn people off the idea of pursuing these skills in later years.

There needn't be any explanation for your choice, of course. There's certainly nothing wrong with being someone who reads slowly. Others might struggle to visualise the scenes without that lovely little push an audiobook provides. Perhaps you simply don't enjoy it. None of these make you less intellectual, less cultured, or less imaginative than anyone else. Stories exist for anyone who likes them. Books are just one form of sharing that.

The idea of any superiority to the the handheld book is not only outdated, but completely dismissive of the experiences of many. Millions of adults in the world today do not consider themselves readers because they grew up struggling to keep up with words on a page. A preference for the physical and visual is not superior to a preference for the auditory.

To all those out there who love stories, but hate reading: I raise a glass to you. Get out there (or, perhaps, stay in) and listen to some audiobooks. You deserve to gloat about them just as badly as anyone who likes to show off all the books they've read.

I am a physical book reader. I always have been.

But we've had our moment. The joy of holding a book between your hands won't go away just because we allow ourselves to share a love for the words with a few more people.

2021 is the year we give some credit to audiobooks.

Cheers to another year of wishful fantasies!