Speaker 1: Hey, what's up?
Speaker 2: Thing is this week we are running a remastered version
Speaker 2: of our very first episode ever. It's about audiobooks, and
Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty fun one. And then make
Speaker 2: sure you stick around after the episode to hear us
Speaker 2: reflect on how we feel about all of this.
Speaker 3: Now, all right on with the show.
Speaker 1: I'm mammy, I'm Noah.
Speaker 2: This is Devin and this is no such thing, the
Speaker 2: show where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by
Speaker 2: actually doing the research. Today's argument began with a tweet
Speaker 2: the question do audiobooks count as reading?
Speaker 3: I don't care what you call it. I honestly don't.
Speaker 2: Do you actually comprehend content the same way when you're
Speaker 2: hearing it versus reading it?
Speaker 4: I feel like I forget what I read very quickly.
Speaker 1: And lastly, I have a confession to make to a friend.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you something now, Rich, okay, and this
Speaker 2: full transparency here.
Speaker 1: What would you say if I told you.
Speaker 3: There's no no such thing, no such thing, no such thank.
Speaker 5: Such thank, no touch thank.
Speaker 4: I'll hop in here because I came across a tweet
Speaker 4: that I dropped into the d M S and the
Speaker 4: tweet was do audiobooks count as reading, and I just commented, no,
Speaker 4: so many.
Speaker 3: What do you think if someone tells me they read
Speaker 3: something but they actually listened to it. I don't feel
Speaker 3: like they're defrauding me or anything like that. I haven't
Speaker 3: listened to many audiobooks, but if I did, I think
Speaker 3: I would be okay telling someone that. If it's the
Speaker 3: end of the year and you're making a list of
Speaker 3: all the books you've read, you would put Prince Harry's
Speaker 3: book on. I would put Prince had you listen to it,
Speaker 3: exactly if I had listened to it.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you obviously believe that listening to an audiobook
Speaker 4: counts as reading.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you know I've listened to the Prince Harry
Speaker 2: You're a Catcher in the Rye.
Speaker 1: That's a book I've read. I know the book.
Speaker 4: Okay. So my goal this year was to read twenty
Speaker 4: four books. I didn't read twenty four. I got to
Speaker 4: like twenty twenty one. You're telling me if I listened
Speaker 4: to twenty four audiobooks this year would be the equivalent
Speaker 4: of me reading twenty four books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would totally accept that. If you were like,
Speaker 1: if you posted that is insane, you posted your listen.
Speaker 3: We're like, here's the twenty four books I read, and
Speaker 3: then we're talking about a semantic issue.
Speaker 4: No, no, no. The question was do audiobooks count as reading? Yeah? Reading?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it means what does reading mean to you?
Speaker 4: Reading means to me? What reading? Yeah?
Speaker 6: With your eyes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: It's like, what is the definition of read?
Speaker 1: I think it's a very small view of what reading
Speaker 1: really is.
Speaker 4: I think it's a very you know, reading is one thing,
Speaker 4: which is reading.
Speaker 1: All right, but these are books.
Speaker 4: Are audio books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's the same, it's the same content. Well,
Speaker 3: do you think people are obscuring the fact that they
Speaker 3: listened to me?
Speaker 4: Yes? This is my whole The real reason I have
Speaker 4: a real issue with this is because I think people
Speaker 4: just need to be honest about how they're consuming media.
Speaker 4: And I think the people who listen to audiobooks and
Speaker 4: want to pretend that they read the books is because
Speaker 4: they are slightly embarrassed that they listen to the book
Speaker 4: and they didn't read it, because otherwise, why won't you
Speaker 4: just say, yeah, I listened to that audiobook. This person
Speaker 4: was clearly asking because she was putting together some sort
Speaker 4: of lists. End of the year she didn't read as
Speaker 4: many books as maybe she felt like she should have
Speaker 4: that year, but she listened to some audio books and
Speaker 4: she wanted to add them to the list.
Speaker 3: So you want people to make two lists, then yeah, well,
Speaker 3: like if I put the guy be honest, it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm not that interested in seeing any lists.
Speaker 1: So now it's like you're gonna ask me to look at.
Speaker 4: Two I'm not saying that, right, Like you can make
Speaker 4: one list and say here's the things I read and
Speaker 4: listen to this year.
Speaker 3: So I think a question for Devin here is what
Speaker 3: is it about the act of reading that you feel
Speaker 3: is more valuable than listening to an audiobook?
Speaker 4: What is the difference between reading and like listening to
Speaker 4: an audiobook? Is that like I can't read and walk
Speaker 4: my dog at the same time, right, I can't read.
Speaker 1: Day, But would you if you could? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I could, I would I mean or like very agile.
Speaker 4: But it's like we talked about this the other day.
Speaker 4: People don't read books. Reading is not an easy thing
Speaker 4: to do, like making time for reading, especially now having
Speaker 4: the intention span to read. And I think you know,
Speaker 4: rightfully or wrong, for like people look at people who
Speaker 4: read a lot of books in a different light than
Speaker 4: someone who may read one book a year. Right, Like
Speaker 4: saying I read one hundred books this year is very
Speaker 4: different than I listened to one hundred audiobooks every morning.
Speaker 4: I listened to let's say two hours of like between
Speaker 4: like NPR and w NYC and like the daily Right.
Speaker 4: So if I said, okay, I'm not going to do
Speaker 4: that every day, I'm just gonna make those audio books,
Speaker 4: I can get through a lot of audio books any year.
Speaker 3: So basically this is like a work ethic thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you're looking at it as a time inagine.
Speaker 3: I mean I I do listen to the occasional audiobook, Okay,
Speaker 3: I mostly read books, Yeah, you know, in your definition
Speaker 3: physical paperback books.
Speaker 1: I'm looking with my eyes.
Speaker 3: It now feels like such a brave thing to say, Like,
Speaker 3: I do listen occasionally.
Speaker 1: I keep a.
Speaker 3: List just so I can look at what I've read
Speaker 3: this here, okay, on that list, And I can look
Speaker 3: at that list and I don't mark off the difference.
Speaker 4: You know which ones you read, yeah, and you know
Speaker 4: which ones you listen to.
Speaker 3: So Devin is making a point about like transparency and honesty.
Speaker 3: But another question around this is like, whether you're reading
Speaker 3: or listening, do you feel like the information is being
Speaker 3: retained in the same way. For example, if Noah listened
Speaker 3: to Killers of the Flower Moon and Devin read it,
Speaker 3: do you feel like you're coming away with such a
Speaker 3: different experience.
Speaker 4: So I don't think like because I read a book
Speaker 4: and Noah listened to a book, that means that I
Speaker 4: necessarily have like retain the information better. I just think
Speaker 4: it's like probably processed in a way that's different. But
Speaker 4: I also like, there's there's books that I read that
Speaker 4: I don't remember very well. Like I sent y'all that
Speaker 4: TikTok the other day about that woman talking about like
Speaker 4: reading the book and then like instantly forgetting.
Speaker 7: Am I the only person who read a book loved
Speaker 7: the book? In about seventy two hours, You'd have forgot
Speaker 7: everything that happened in the damn book. And that's why
Speaker 7: my friends be thinking that I'd just be skimming through
Speaker 7: the pages because they fuck want to ask me about
Speaker 7: a book.
Speaker 4: I cann't tell you what the fuck happened in that book.
Speaker 4: And if like there's some stuff that I read just
Speaker 4: like for fun that I'm not paying that close attention
Speaker 4: to like that happens, and I instantly forget what happens.
Speaker 4: And there's like some audio stuff that like I'll be
Speaker 4: listening to that, like maybe I'm paying a bit more
Speaker 4: attention to like of this American Life episode where I'll
Speaker 4: be able to retain more information. So I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think that's a long way of saying I think
Speaker 4: it depends. I don't think like necessarily reading or listening
Speaker 4: to something means you're going to retain the information better.
Speaker 1: It can go both ways.
Speaker 2: Like I've read books and then reread them and then
Speaker 2: just you know, whether it's just the mood you're in
Speaker 2: when you're doing that or whatever, you might just be
Speaker 2: able to absorb the information better, whether it's just like
Speaker 2: you're in a different heads. And then there's also books
Speaker 2: that like I've done both at the same time, where
Speaker 2: like I'll have the physical copy, but then I'll have
Speaker 2: the audiobook on my phone. Yeah, Like I remember doing
Speaker 2: that with the Oppenheimer biography.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, we had a conversation where Rich about it.
Speaker 1: For context, Rich is a friend of ours we used
Speaker 1: to work with.
Speaker 4: I just want to reveal on the podcast here that
Speaker 4: you didn't say I listened also listened to the audiobook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm speaking my truth. That's because that's how I feel.
Speaker 3: It's it's the same thing.
Speaker 4: The conversation was literally about how he couldn't get through
Speaker 4: reading the book.
Speaker 1: I don't know what his habits are like, maybe he
Speaker 1: reads two books a year. I read a lot of books.
Speaker 1: I read.
Speaker 4: That exact conversation is my issue with people who want
Speaker 4: to claim that they read audiobooks. It's like one man
Speaker 4: is saying, Wow, it's really hard for me to get
Speaker 4: through reading this book, and you're like, yeah, it was
Speaker 4: kind of easy for me. I didn't like to read.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't brag about it. He asked me how
Speaker 1: long it took.
Speaker 4: I gave him an answer or a time about some
Speaker 4: very important information, which is you listen to half of it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I know every fact in there, so.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying, you know, once again, it's not about comprehension.
Speaker 1: To me, it is about comprehension.
Speaker 3: We keep going back to this where it's like you're
Speaker 3: talking about people being worried about how they're going to
Speaker 3: be perceived.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, that's kind of what this is actually about it.
Speaker 3: And this is about people's so it just depends on
Speaker 3: how you want to present publicly. I guess I don't
Speaker 3: think in that moment with Rich for example, I wasn't
Speaker 3: being self conscious.
Speaker 2: I just wasn't thinking about it. I was beyond being
Speaker 2: self conscious.
Speaker 1: I was on a different plane.
Speaker 2: It was not even a thought in my head to
Speaker 2: mention it because it's irrelevant to me.
Speaker 3: Just to distill the argument a little bit here, basically, Devin,
Speaker 3: you feel like people are self conscious about this because
Speaker 3: they feel like listening to an audiobook is not as
Speaker 3: prestigious as reading a book.
Speaker 4: You got to see what's important to you. It's like
Speaker 4: a challenge for me to like find time to read.
Speaker 4: To me, there's something I don't know, still sacred about
Speaker 4: getting outside of the sort of digital world we live
Speaker 4: in to read words on a page. Well, like you
Speaker 4: didn't ask Noah how he feels about it about do
Speaker 4: you think reading is more sacred than listening to an audiobook?
Speaker 2: I can't say necessarily, I think that. Like I think
Speaker 2: if you if you're actually focusing on the words and
Speaker 2: focusing on listening to it, you could still have the
Speaker 2: same experience, are a very similar experience, if not the
Speaker 2: same one, but as far as comprehending and connecting with it.
Speaker 2: I think generally you could even even something that is
Speaker 2: like maybe on a more sentence by sentence level kind
Speaker 2: of that more literary sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And to play Noah's Advocate a little bit, you know,
Speaker 3: at least like like the passing of information via word
Speaker 3: of mouth, like that's long before books and writing, Like
Speaker 3: that's an ancient tradition.
Speaker 1: That's right, I ever heard of the odysseed of him?
Speaker 8: What do you personally think, though you said, I'm at
Speaker 8: the end of the year, if you read ten books
Speaker 8: versus listening to ten audiobooks, what you think is more
Speaker 8: valuable reading?
Speaker 1: Okay, reading with us?
Speaker 4: We can look, we can look. I think there's I
Speaker 4: think the thing here, right is that we all want
Speaker 4: to pretend like audio books are.
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's like what we say is valuable.
Speaker 2: That's what I would That's what I would prefer, and
Speaker 2: that's how I would get the most out of these
Speaker 2: books for me.
Speaker 4: But I think this is that classic sort of like
Speaker 4: everyone wants, you know, like we all want to pretend
Speaker 4: to be like inclusive and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: But it comes down to it. It's like, well, me, personally,
Speaker 4: I prefer to read. But like if you want to say,
Speaker 4: like audiobooks is reading good for you.
Speaker 1: You're saying I'm being too woke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think that basically.
Speaker 1: Think it's like people observe these things differently.
Speaker 4: Agree. Yeah, just own the way you're absorbing it, Like
Speaker 4: if you're listening to an audiobook, just be upfront about it.
Speaker 2: So Devon's main concern is more about the presentation of
Speaker 2: it all. He thinks people are embarrassed to admit that
Speaker 2: they listen to books because it's quote unquote easier than reading.
Speaker 1: So we're going to do a couple things now.
Speaker 2: We're going to do a test to see how reading
Speaker 2: stacks up versus listening as far as retaining information, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to talk to an expert about
Speaker 2: all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. I'm Noah Manny Devin. Last time we.
Speaker 2: Spoke, we were arguing about whether or not audiobooks count
Speaker 2: as reading.
Speaker 4: So we just really quickly say where we stand.
Speaker 1: Devin, why don't you say where you stand?
Speaker 4: Audiobooks do not count as reading, they count as listening
Speaker 4: to audiobooks.
Speaker 2: And to me, they're the same, you get all the
Speaker 2: same stuff out of them, so it's reading to me.
Speaker 4: Then, I remember, what do you use stand on this?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: I remember being kind of agnostic.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: So what we've done since then is I wanted to
Speaker 2: get some real answers on this. I reached out to
Speaker 2: an expert on the issue. I wanted to find out
Speaker 2: how reading comprehension is actually studied and what differences there
Speaker 2: are between reading and listening.
Speaker 5: My name is Virginia Clinton LaSelle. I'm an associate professor
Speaker 5: of Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota,
Speaker 5: and I specialize in digital reading and flexible reading modalities.
Speaker 2: She published a meta analysis a few years ago looking
Speaker 2: at forty six different reading versus listening studies, oh with
Speaker 2: over forty six hundred participants, so she's kind of the
Speaker 2: perfect person to ask about this. She had an interesting
Speaker 2: motivation for why she started the study to begin with.
Speaker 5: I will say my motivation for this study was I
Speaker 5: was in a book club on campus and somebody very
Speaker 5: sheepishly sad, I've been listening to the audiobook. Oh I'm sorry, like,
Speaker 5: and I've been doing so much driving.
Speaker 1: It just worked better.
Speaker 5: And I remember just thinking, why are you so embarrassed
Speaker 5: about that? We're all busy academics. We're doing something extra,
Speaker 5: you know, you're meeting a talking about it and contribute in.
Speaker 3: I've learned something. After that, after that SoundBite, I'm on,
Speaker 3: if you're in a book reaction, Like I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I don't care what you call it, I honestly don't.
Speaker 4: You're in a book club the whole point of a book.
Speaker 2: But if she's able to come and actually say things,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like what differences I get, like the
Speaker 2: information relaying, but that feels like a book club feels
Speaker 2: like kind of a sacred act. Yeah, but I guess
Speaker 2: the point is like if she hadn't said that, would
Speaker 2: the other people in the group even know? Like what
Speaker 2: are you in the book club for? Because you all
Speaker 2: read these pages or because you're reading this book together
Speaker 2: and learning about the story or whatever. It's like, if
Speaker 2: you're able to talk about it, then it doesn't.
Speaker 4: View twofold right, Like the book club holds you like
Speaker 4: accountable for Okay, I'm going to have to finish this
Speaker 4: thing because I'm gonna have to go and talk to
Speaker 4: people about it. So it forces you to make time
Speaker 4: to read the book to your point, I think in
Speaker 4: terms of the discussions, sure, I don't care if you've
Speaker 4: you know, like I can talk to I could talk
Speaker 4: to someone about a book if I've read it and
Speaker 4: they've listened to it. I'm not they'll be like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: I only speak to people who have read the book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not, like the book club goes. It doesn't
Speaker 3: go any differently if you listen or read it, but
Speaker 3: it just feels like a weird for whatever reason, that
Speaker 3: struck me as like wow, in a book club.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I asked her what these experiments typically look like, and
Speaker 2: it's pretty simple. The participants will read or listen to
Speaker 2: a selected text. Sometimes there will be different parameters, like
Speaker 2: you have thirty minutes to do it, or it'll kind
Speaker 2: of shift you through one phrase at a time to
Speaker 2: keep you at a certain pace, and then you'll answer
Speaker 2: multiple choice questions or do something like write down everything
Speaker 2: you remember. So there's a variance there as far as
Speaker 2: how difficult the testing is, whether it's looking for simple
Speaker 2: stuff or kind of taking the next step in inferring
Speaker 2: and applying more knowledge to it. It'd typically be something
Speaker 2: where one group reads something one week and then they
Speaker 2: come back the next week and listen to something, so
Speaker 2: you can compare the same people's scores and each Anyway,
Speaker 2: we did our own small version of that. Now, obviously
Speaker 2: it's a real study. Wouldn't just be me listening versus
Speaker 2: Devin reading. It would be us doing both of them
Speaker 2: and then testing. But this is more to prove a
Speaker 2: point and to be petty. So we just did a
Speaker 2: simple one like this. We both read a short story
Speaker 2: called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, and then we took
Speaker 2: a short I think it's definitely like for a high
Speaker 2: school class. Okay, multiple choice, multiple choice questionnaire on it.
Speaker 3: So I think we should start with Devin's score.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, So Devin read read the story using a
Speaker 2: visual modality.
Speaker 4: So I got one wrong.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's pretty good.
Speaker 4: Okay, So what my score was? Eight? He got one wrong,
Speaker 4: one wrong, So I got a ninety five. That's great.
Speaker 3: Wow, starts that's strong, a strong start. No, how did
Speaker 3: you do on your test?
Speaker 2: Well, I got I read the book using a you know,
Speaker 2: auditory modality, and I got an eighty nine percent two
Speaker 2: questions wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, only two.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of the arbiter here. I think it
Speaker 3: does mean something that Devin got one more question right
Speaker 3: than Noah. However, I'm I'm thinking like one question to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can attribute that to like
Speaker 3: reading being that much better of a method of information, which.
Speaker 1: He might just be smarter, Trevn might just be built different.
Speaker 1: We have not thought about that this specific time.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this the results, like stats wise,
Speaker 3: Devin wins, but I just don't know if I can
Speaker 3: really say which which mode is retaining the information better
Speaker 3: than the other one.
Speaker 1: So I asked doctor Clinton Lassell to explain what's going
Speaker 1: on in your brain when you're reading.
Speaker 5: There's two processes that are going on in our brain
Speaker 5: in what's called the simple view of reading. They're stea coding,
Speaker 5: where you look at the text and you're able to
Speaker 5: determine what those words are, so you can see the word,
Speaker 5: the thch the letters, and then you know that means
Speaker 5: the And then there's the comprehension aspect, where you're taking
Speaker 5: the meaning from the text and creating an idea of
Speaker 5: what the whole text is about. That's called a mental
Speaker 5: representation of the text, and that requires things like vocabulary
Speaker 5: and background knowledge and making connections from one idea to
Speaker 5: the next.
Speaker 2: So that kind of lays out the two step process
Speaker 2: that goes on when you're taking in a text. I asked,
Speaker 2: you know the big question, which is what's the difference
Speaker 2: comprehension wise between reading versus listening.
Speaker 5: They're honestly not that different. Obviously, the decoding process isn't there.
Speaker 5: You're not having to look at words and figure out
Speaker 5: what those letters mean, but instead you're listening and you
Speaker 5: have to figure out those sounds make words. Now, because
Speaker 5: we learned how to listen from infant see, but we
Speaker 5: learned how to read a little bit later in our lives,
Speaker 5: we forget that that listening process actually takes brain power
Speaker 5: and actually takes efforts. So I think that's why a
Speaker 5: lot of times there's this misconception that listening to an
Speaker 5: audiobook is cheating or it's not really reading a book
Speaker 5: or learning about content area, and that just doesn't seem
Speaker 5: to be the case. Definitely, when it comes to memory
Speaker 5: for what you read, there's really no difference between an
Speaker 5: audiobook and a visual book.
Speaker 1: So you heard it there.
Speaker 2: Reading and listening are actually very similar, but listening is
Speaker 2: so much more natural to us since we've been doing
Speaker 2: it longer than we've been reading, obviously, that we kind
Speaker 2: of overlook the work that we do to turn sounds.
Speaker 2: We hear into words with meaning that's fair, which I
Speaker 2: thought was really interesting.
Speaker 3: And I suppose that's the other side of the exam
Speaker 3: that you two did, which is like, yes, Devin got
Speaker 3: one more question correct, but Noah still got seventeen out
Speaker 3: of nineteen. Yeah, so it's not like listening to audio.
Speaker 1: If I came in and got.
Speaker 2: Ten of those right out of yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be here sitting talking to you guys. I'd be like,
Speaker 2: we're scrapping this episode to share. One thing she does
Speaker 2: mention is like, yeah, when we're talking about more complicated
Speaker 2: sorts of things, they do see more improvement for visual reading.
Speaker 2: Part of it is like you're more likely to go
Speaker 2: back and reread things, even if you don't.
Speaker 1: Think about it.
Speaker 2: So like on a page, you probably reread a few
Speaker 2: sentences even if you don't feel like, oh actually I'm
Speaker 2: going back.
Speaker 4: Or even pausing right, Like that's what I was thinking
Speaker 4: about when I was doing this test. It's like I
Speaker 4: was stopping and like, okay, I was saying to myself, Okay,
Speaker 4: gotta remember that character's name because it probably will come up,
Speaker 4: and it was and then rating again. Whereas if you
Speaker 4: listen to an audiobook, yeah you can pause and rewind,
Speaker 4: but it's like it's a lot more complicated of a process.
Speaker 2: She also said, to where we're talking about driving and
Speaker 2: this sort of thing, there's obviously different levels of distr
Speaker 2: So it's like you can be distracted reading a paper
Speaker 2: book if like your kid's running up to you and
Speaker 2: bugging you all the time or whatever. You know, your
Speaker 2: phone's next to you and going off in the same way.
Speaker 2: Where if you're driving and you're going down a new
Speaker 2: route that you don't know and you have a book on, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're probably not going to get a lot of it.
Speaker 2: But if you're doing your normal commute and it's like
Speaker 2: you're print to clear and you know what it is,
Speaker 2: you're not your brain is not even thinking about it
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 1: It's probably about equal.
Speaker 2: Okay, So multitasking in general lowers comprehension and just takes
Speaker 2: longer to pick up that stuff. She also mentioned some
Speaker 2: other reasons that audiobooks could be a preferred option.
Speaker 5: I know, also there's a lot of functional diversity. So obviously,
Speaker 5: if you're visually impaired, your audiobooks are going to be
Speaker 5: a better option for the most part. But there's a
Speaker 5: lot of other functionally diverse individuals, you know, things like
Speaker 5: having bad arthritis. Holding a book is painful, listening to
Speaker 5: a book is not. There's a bill curve of how
Speaker 5: act and how much somebody moves in general, and you know,
Speaker 5: people like my daughter don't have ADHD, but they are
Speaker 5: just more active individuals. So people with ADHD who really
Speaker 5: do have a hard time sitting still find that if
Speaker 5: they're doing some kind of multitasking that doesn't take cognitive effort,
Speaker 5: like folding the laundry or washing the dishes, that having
Speaker 5: that physical movement keeps their body calm so they're able
Speaker 5: to listen and really enjoy the book. Whereas holding a book,
Speaker 5: I mean, there's some things you can do, like you
Speaker 5: can ride a stationary bike or do a stair stepper,
Speaker 5: but you're a lot more limited as far as your mobility.
Speaker 2: She ended up bringing up about schools and reading loss,
Speaker 2: where you know, I'm asking about all these different things
Speaker 2: and she's like, yeah, well, like, especially when you're talking
Speaker 2: with students, like, ultimately, you just want them to read,
Speaker 2: however they're going to actually read it, because that's going
Speaker 2: to be better than if they just totally skip the
Speaker 2: assignment because it's only in a textbook. And she basically says,
Speaker 2: unless the lesson is about is about to teach a
Speaker 2: reading scale or something like that's the point of it,
Speaker 2: then ideally the student just has whatever option they're actually
Speaker 2: going to do.
Speaker 5: Is the learning objective teaching them something specific to reading,
Speaker 5: or is it about the content or the story structure
Speaker 5: or the plot or the background knowledge. If it's the
Speaker 5: learning objectives don't have anything to do with the actual
Speaker 5: modality specific language skills, then if an option is available,
Speaker 5: giving that option would probably be a good idea.
Speaker 2: That's kind of her view as a educator. The more
Speaker 2: you read, the better you read, and that just goes
Speaker 2: for everything.
Speaker 4: And she says the more you read in terms of
Speaker 4: like actual reading or your your pretender reading reading.
Speaker 3: The more you read, the better you're the good doctor
Speaker 3: said the more you said reading.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So those are my main takeaways. So, I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess the big question is does this change your
Speaker 2: your opinions on this at all?
Speaker 1: Many why don't you go first?
Speaker 3: As we know, at the beginning of this, I was
Speaker 3: kind of ambivalent. I've never minded when someone. I guess
Speaker 3: I've never known, actually, so someone could have told me
Speaker 3: that they read a book and they could have lied
Speaker 3: to probably yeah, probably lie. But if they were lying,
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have minded. Now I do care,
Speaker 3: but I'm still in the middle because I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't mind, like I truly don't mind how people describe
Speaker 3: how they read things.
Speaker 1: So I guess that puts me on no aside.
Speaker 2: Are you surprised by what we found out?
Speaker 3: I was surprised to hear that listening to a book
Speaker 3: is essentially the same comprehension process as reading a book.
Speaker 3: And so someone's listening to a book and they say
Speaker 3: they want they read it, if they want to say
Speaker 3: they read it, I don't have any problem with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'll say, even as a you know,
Speaker 2: the audiobook advocate here, I was a bit surprised at
Speaker 2: the comprehension levels were essentially the same. I kind of
Speaker 2: expected that reading on paper would be a lot higher
Speaker 2: if there was going to be a difference, So I
Speaker 2: was surprised when when I learned that that there's not
Speaker 2: that much of a difference. But yeah, I mean even
Speaker 2: as someone who would and for me it felt like
Speaker 2: I definitely get more out of the page. But I'm
Speaker 2: finding out that basically if I actually focused on an audiobook,
Speaker 2: I would get pretty much exactly the same, which was instructive.
Speaker 3: And then, Devin, I imagine that you still still feel
Speaker 3: like people should be upfront about whether they read or listened.
Speaker 3: But do you feel any differently about like that mode,
Speaker 3: Like does it do you feel differently? Do you feel
Speaker 3: do you have more respects for people who listen to
Speaker 3: books that's knowing that they're getting the same information.
Speaker 4: I think, See, I know it came up very strong
Speaker 4: walking back, because I still feel very strongly that people
Speaker 4: who listen to audiobook should just say they listened to
Speaker 4: the audiobooks. But for me, it was never about the
Speaker 4: comprehension part, because like I said, there's like some of
Speaker 4: the stuff that I consume, I feel like the best
Speaker 4: is audio based stuff, Like that's the stuff that like
Speaker 4: keeps my attention at times the best, Like it's the
Speaker 4: mode that like I had default to in terms of
Speaker 4: like entertainment. Right, So it was never to me about comprehension.
Speaker 4: It is addressing actually see like, okay, yeah, these are
Speaker 4: actually very similar, like she said, there, you know, obviously
Speaker 4: there's some specifics based on how they distracted you are
Speaker 4: or caveats that today. But so I'm not that surprised
Speaker 4: that comprehension is pretty similar. But I still feel like
Speaker 4: knowing that you should feel even more empowered to go
Speaker 4: up to someone and said, I listened to the audiobook.
Speaker 4: What a you're gonna say, I didn't comprehend the information
Speaker 4: in the same way.
Speaker 2: Well, I do say that as far as if I
Speaker 2: came across someone say I'm having an open conversation now
Speaker 2: and it comes out that I listened to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read an audiobook.
Speaker 2: I think I now I'd be like, well, actually, first
Speaker 2: of all, you know, listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1: But also I'd probably be like, oh, you might.
Speaker 3: Be surprised to learn that it's actually, you know, the
Speaker 3: same same comprehension as far as comprehension. But so, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe for me still there is something about reading the
Speaker 3: ritual of doing it, the fact that you can't do
Speaker 3: a while doing other things.
Speaker 4: You know, it's still holds a special place in my heart.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, if someone wants to come at
Speaker 4: you saying like you're an idiot because you listen to
Speaker 4: the thing, it's like, no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually I'm an idiot for other reasons.
Speaker 3: I think the audiobook listeners of the world after listening
Speaker 3: to this episode will feel more empowered to be more transparent.
Speaker 4: But I'm not gonna lie about.
Speaker 3: How they consumed that book. Yes, and I think that's
Speaker 3: a beautiful.
Speaker 1: Thing exactly would change the world.
Speaker 4: Before the end of the episode, I think we need
Speaker 4: to do one more thing.
Speaker 3: I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I don't think this is necessary.
Speaker 4: I think we need to call over it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it.
Speaker 4: Rich.
Speaker 1: Do you remember last year we got burrito's. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then we I think we went bowling.
Speaker 6: We did go bowling. I remember vividly.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what we talked about while we were
Speaker 2: walking from the burrito place to the bowling hour?
Speaker 6: Yeah. We were talking about Oppenheimer. The movie had just
Speaker 6: come out, and I was saying like, yeah, I just
Speaker 6: got the book, and you were saying, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 6: already read it. And I was like, wait, really you
Speaker 6: had time to read all of that, and You're like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I just spent some time, like really dug down into.
Speaker 2: It, and all right, so I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you something now, Rich, Okay, and
Speaker 2: this is full transparency here.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what would you say if I told you that? Listen?
Speaker 2: I completed the book, but I listened to about twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of it as an audiobook.
Speaker 1: What's your reaction there?
Speaker 6: Okay, So it kind of seems like where you're going
Speaker 6: with this is that maybe Manny and Devon are trying
Speaker 6: to say that like your opposer or something. Yeah, but no,
Speaker 6: I actually I think this is like innovative.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, whish there was a moment of the converse
Speaker 3: you guys had last year where you mentioned how hard
Speaker 3: it was to get through some of the chapters.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: Rich was very impressed by how quickly you had finished it.
Speaker 4: He's like, wow, you've read that in three weeks.
Speaker 6: Oh actually wait, yeah, now I'm being swayed. Yeah, hold on,
Speaker 6: keep going, Devin.
Speaker 4: Keep going, And Noah just said yeah, and I remember
Speaker 4: to look on his face when he said it. I
Speaker 4: turned around during this part in the conversation because Rich
Speaker 4: was like, wow, that's really fast. You read it that fast,
Speaker 4: like three weeks and it was like I was impressed.
Speaker 4: He was like yeah, And I looked at Noah's face
Speaker 4: and I could tell. I was like, it looked like
Speaker 4: you were lying.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow, looks like something's happening in his eyes. But I'm like,
Speaker 4: that would be a weird, Like, no, he's not going
Speaker 4: to lie about reading a book.
Speaker 6: I just want to clarify my position now too, because
Speaker 6: I thought I kind of I am feeling a little
Speaker 6: bit manipulated. I'm feeling like you were kind of playing
Speaker 6: into that idea of you are the book guy in
Speaker 6: this in this relationship.
Speaker 1: Yes, question, I answered a question.
Speaker 6: I answered, I'm feeling a little betrayed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I expected.
Speaker 6: It kind of seems like you were doing it for
Speaker 6: like nerd clote. I think the real question that you're
Speaker 6: not getting at is if you're if you are an
Speaker 6: audiobook person, are you going to be upfront about it?
Speaker 1: If you're like, I'll tell you this, oh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this new book, like yeah, like I read this,
Speaker 6: but it's like, no, you you did it. You you
Speaker 6: listen to it, and that's fine, but I think you
Speaker 6: people need to be upfront. We need to normalize up
Speaker 6: front about audiobooks.
Speaker 2: Listen in the future, in a scenario like that, Rich,
Speaker 2: where someone's prodding me for details on the speed and
Speaker 2: pace of my reading, I'm going to go listen, do
Speaker 2: you have do you have a second? I'm going to say,
Speaker 2: sit down, Okay, I'm going to explain to you exactly
Speaker 2: which pages I.
Speaker 6: Read, what I listened to, and good, good, thank you.
Speaker 2: And I'm just going to come clean from now on.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna, you know, just solders say, you know, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not that smart, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: It's like, we'll just move on.
Speaker 4: We need honesty in this country.
Speaker 2: By the way, since we recorded, Rich has become an
Speaker 2: avid audiobook listener. All right, Now stick around after the
Speaker 2: break to hear me Manny and Devin reflect on this
Speaker 2: episode a year and a half later. All right, So
Speaker 2: it's been you know, about a year and a half
Speaker 2: since we released this episode.
Speaker 1: How do you guys feel about it?
Speaker 4: Now? It's crazy how much has changed but also stayed
Speaker 4: the same. Yeah, I will say, you know what has changed?
Speaker 4: I think I've evolved slightly on this. Sure, we've done
Speaker 4: you know, now another episode about reading, specifically why kids
Speaker 4: aren't reading and is that a big issue, and I
Speaker 4: think when we recorded that episode, my my thoughts were, Yes,
Speaker 4: as a society, we don't read. That's bad. We shouldn't
Speaker 4: just pretend that audiobooks are doing the same thing. We
Speaker 4: should also be reading more and sure you can also
Speaker 4: listen to audiobooks. I think now I don't care what
Speaker 4: people do.
Speaker 1: Let's take what you can get.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think, like Jason Reynolds talks about, like, you know,
Speaker 4: we should hold high goals for ourselves, but we should
Speaker 4: also be realistic about where we are. So it feels
Speaker 4: a bit like, yeah, I would love for more people
Speaker 4: to be reading in a you know, traditional sense, but
Speaker 4: because it's so hard to get people to do anything.
Speaker 4: If kids are listening to audiobooks, that's great. If parents
Speaker 4: will listen to audiobooks, that's great. Just like more reading
Speaker 4: beyond social media and headlines would be great.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, minimum, I think hopefully looking at it is more
Speaker 2: of maybe a gateway to more critical thinking in whatever
Speaker 2: capacity is is a win. And we'll see as far
Speaker 2: as the paper reading what happens with that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Throughout the episode, the original episode, I was
Speaker 3: mostly ambivalent, with a slight leniency towards people who listen
Speaker 3: to audiobooks, but said that they read something. But now
Speaker 3: I've got a new perspective on this from the lens
Speaker 3: of an author.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, you'd have a book out that I was.
Speaker 3: Not a published author, and now I am. And it
Speaker 3: actually is striking how many people came up to me
Speaker 3: and told me that they listened to the audiobook. So
Speaker 3: I recorded an audiobook of my book, which was a
Speaker 3: lot harder than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3: And so I have an appreciation for people who listen
Speaker 3: to the audiobook version because of how difficult it was
Speaker 3: to record it. Now I was presented with the option of, like,
Speaker 3: you know, Penguin Random House said that they could just
Speaker 3: hire someone to read the book. But I thought it'd
Speaker 3: be you know, it's not that.
Speaker 1: Long of a book.
Speaker 3: I should be able to just go in there and
Speaker 3: knock it out. But it took like three or four
Speaker 3: different sessions. I lost my voice at the end of
Speaker 3: each one. And so now if you're listening to audiobooks,
Speaker 3: I have a new appreciation for you, because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of work that goes into actually laying those down
Speaker 3: on the tracks.
Speaker 4: Wow, so your point of view now has shifted because
Speaker 4: you see the work that goes into making an audio
Speaker 4: book exactly.
Speaker 3: We need people to be consuming these otherwise the work
Speaker 3: will have been for nothing. In some ways, it's harder
Speaker 3: than writing a book, I would imagine, would you agree
Speaker 3: with that? Man, It's more physically it's more physically taxing,
Speaker 3: for sure. It's interesting because yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 3: conversations we have are similar still as far as both
Speaker 3: kind of a comprehension and what we're getting out of something,
Speaker 3: and then also kind of a performance angle, which was
Speaker 3: kind of the kind of big major difference where it's like,
Speaker 3: if someone says something, I'm just gonna take them out
Speaker 3: their word and try to not like I think they're.
Speaker 1: Hiding something or obfuscating something.
Speaker 3: And you see this not only with this one issue,
Speaker 3: but even just like with anything about taste in general,
Speaker 3: where it's like you see people think that if someone
Speaker 3: likes an album that's not popular, then they're lying about it.
Speaker 2: Or something, or like, oh, you're trying to look cool,
Speaker 2: And then you see the three yeah, and then you
Speaker 2: see the opposite way where it's like, oh, well, everyone
Speaker 2: likes likes Britney Spears, like if you say you don't
Speaker 2: like her, you're just being an asshole.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, maybe, but people just like different things.
Speaker 3: It's like I didn't like disclosure to day. I don't
Speaker 3: think people who like it are lying. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: taste thing, you know. I can't wait to see that one.
Speaker 4: Some people just have bad taste.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't help that.
Speaker 3: And you know they should go support my movie theater.
Speaker 3: You know, some people have bad tastes is the wrong
Speaker 3: lesson to take. Noah was just talking about.
Speaker 2: Some people have different and it's it's their taste, and
Speaker 2: that's what's most important.
Speaker 3: Right, unique taste.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's I love that.
Speaker 2: As far as reading this year, Devin, have you listened
Speaker 2: to any audiobooks or read anything of note?
Speaker 1: Or are you behind or ahead of your goal for
Speaker 1: the year?
Speaker 4: I should say, you know what, I've I've evolved on this.
Speaker 4: I've stopped giving myself goals because I felt like I
Speaker 4: was not enjoying the books. I was just trying to
Speaker 4: get through them to hit my magic number of twenty
Speaker 4: or whatever it was. So now I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: make more time for reading. Yeah, but not give myself
Speaker 4: a year in goal. But I did just finish yesterday
Speaker 4: actually Inna Dunham's memoir, same Sick, How was it? It's great,
Speaker 4: It's incredible. She just has no filter, which is incredible
Speaker 4: for a memoir, you know, like she tells you everything.
Speaker 4: It would be a fun one to listen to as
Speaker 4: an audiobook.
Speaker 3: Yeahah, does she have an audiobook version?
Speaker 4: I would imagine she does, so, you know, never say
Speaker 4: never made. They'll throw it down on at some point.
Speaker 3: I'm hoping she pulled a manny And and read it herself.
Speaker 4: Oh come on, if she's not reading her audiet book,
Speaker 4: and what are we doing here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we're transitioning this conversation into like how we
Speaker 3: used to do things. I was pretty impressed honestly that,
Speaker 3: you know, we we didn't really go after each other
Speaker 3: as much as I remembered. Like, there was a lot
Speaker 3: of like, Okay, here's what Devin is saying, but I
Speaker 3: think this is what he means. And we were like
Speaker 3: translating our arguments to each other in real time, which
Speaker 3: I thought was surprising. I was expecting to press play
Speaker 3: on this and be like, oh, yeah, we probably screamed
Speaker 3: for ninety minutes.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well, granted we cut it down to thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Out of probably two and a half hours total, where yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, we cleaned it up to make ourselves more presentable,
Speaker 2: I think on all sides.
Speaker 4: I do remember, especially those early episodes, our arguments were
Speaker 4: a lot more heated in those studios. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so we did, I think, yeah, we we We turned
Speaker 4: it around to make us look a little bit more
Speaker 4: matured than we were in the perhaps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we'll have to come up with some more
Speaker 3: we'll if you get into more fights like that again soon,
Speaker 3: I think. Yeah, if you're listening to this now and
Speaker 3: you you know, you have some ideas for us to
Speaker 3: debate about, definitely reach out to us in the email
Speaker 3: yeah that's in the show notes, or leave us a
Speaker 3: voicemail and the phone number that's in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Hess No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Kate Osborne and Magues Cadur. The
Speaker 3: show is created by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devin Joseph.
Speaker 3: Female credits song by Manny, mixing by Steve Bone. Our
Speaker 3: guest this week our doctor Virginia Clinton Lassell and Rich Feloni.
Speaker 3: You can visit No Such Thing dot show to subscribe
Speaker 3: to our newsletter. If you have feedback for us or
Speaker 3: a question, our email is Manny no A Devin at
Speaker 3: gmail dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail
Speaker 3: by calling the number in our show notes. Thanks by
Speaker 3: Hell's Hell's, Hell's hells.
Speaker 8: It is such thing.