Just saw this come up again in another thread, that audiobooks don’t count as real reading. I don’t actually buying the reasoning (not active participation, can do other things, etc), but I kinda get it. I feel like I pause, rewind, zone out, and generally process the information the same. Unless I’m trying to listen while doing something that takes too much brain power.
But why doesn’t the argument get applied to people devouring 100 or 200 or more genre books a year? You have to be flying through them to the point that concentration is not worse than an audiobook while driving, but recall is likely going to be much much worse. If I read 20 mysteries I’m going to struggle differentiating anything beyond the premise? Now apply that to nearly one YA book a day. I’m sure there are savants with perfect photographic recall, but that’s not the average booktuber.
So where do you fall?
Reading is a verb that means something. It means moving your eyes back in forth, deciphering letters to form meaning. We do not read audiobooks. We listen to them. No disrespect to audiobook listeners, but it is not reading.
I see what you’re saying about similar books. I think maybe it comforts people, but since they are literally moving their eyes to decipher letters into meaning, it is reading.
I think the problem arises when people want to meet reading goals and skim over paragraphs, or even lie about what they read. At the end of the day, reading is an internal, self-developmental task.
Happy reading, or listening. No judgement.