Pressing Play or Turning Pages: Does Modality of Literature Matter?

 

Student Research Paper by Claire Davis

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Now read that out loud. Do you get more out of this quote from A Tale of Two Cities by reading it in your head or listening to it out loud? Proponents of physical books might argue that the written word is the preferred form of literature. Some promoters of audiobooks similarly say listening to books is superior. While there are different forms of published literature, is there one, particularly between physical books and audiobooks, that stands out as more beneficial than the other? Though advocates on both sides may try to convince their audience that one is better than the other, in reality, neither is superior. Instead, they are both useful for different reasons and can even be advantageous when paired together.

Audiobooks have become increasingly popular in recent decades for two reasons. First, they have become more accessible. According to a study from Edison's Research, revenue from audiobooks increased by 9% in 2023 to $2 billion (“Audiobook Revenue”). With so many copies being made and sold, audiobooks have become increasingly conventional. Secondly, they are more convenient due to the fact that today practically everyone is carrying a smartphone. People do not need to go to the library to borrow an audiobook CD anymore; instead, they can just open an app and borrow one from an online library or purchase it from an online audiobook store.

Audiobooks are beneficial in a variety of ways. For students who have dyslexia or other learning disabilities, audiobooks can help improve reading comprehension. It helps level the playing field for students. Casey Harrison, a dyslexic therapist, explains that students who do not have trouble with traditional reading will continue to read books on their grade level; however, dyslexic students, if the material is not delivered through a different method such as audiobooks, will not read material on their grade level, which makes them fall behind even more (Harrison). Audiobooks can help counter this issue and keep every student on pace. In his lecture entitled “Nurturing Competent Communicators,” Andrew Pudewa, founder of the Institute for Excellence in Writing, suggests that “for children that are not going to become avid readers with their eyes, then what’s so important is to get it in through the ears and to supplement what [parents and teachers] can do reading aloud with the marvelous technology of audiobooks” (Pudewa). Students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities can maintain grade-level progress by listening to materials via audiobooks. 

Additionally, by drawing listeners into stories with the captivating, dramatic voices of the narrators, audiobooks can help hesitant readers learn to love literature. When listening to an audiobook by a skilled narrator, particularly of a fictional work, the story comes alive. In her article “High Schools Kids Barely Read. Could Audiobooks Reverse That Trend?," Elizabeth Heubeck mentions a 9th grade teacher who assigns his students to listen to an audiobook of The Odyssey. He does not allow any of them to have a physical book in front of them as they listen in anticipation of the exciting retelling of the book that includes not only the spoken text but also exotic sound effects. These features can make literature more enjoyable than normal reading. Audiobooks can keep students and adults engaged, encouraging them to come back for more.

However, comprehension of a book could also be hindered by audiobooks because of the narrator. Cody Kommers, who has a PhD in experimental psychology, brings up this point in his article “Why Listening to a Book Is Not the Same as Reading It," expressing that “a written text has no narrator besides the one in your head” (Kommers). For some people, having a person narrating the book to them can have a negative effect as it limits their imagination when listening to a book. If they imagine Tom Sawyer to sound a certain way, but the narrator expresses Sawyer's voice in a conflicting way, the listener’s potentially enjoyable experience is subdued. Whenever someone reads a physical book, it allows them to imagine the characters of the story in their own way without being tainted by another person’s idea of how it should sound.

Moreover, reading a physical copy of a book can aid in retaining more of the information in the book, perhaps better than listening to an audiobook version of the same work. In his article “Why Listening to a Book Is Not the Same as Reading It," Cody Kommers also explains that when a person is reading books, he or she is the one making progress. He states that when listening to an audiobook “[y]ou can tune out…and there will still be forward motion in a story” (Kommers). Readers can get distracted when reading, but, unlike with audiobooks, when readers get distracted, progression in the book ceases. Whereas with an audiobook, the narrator keeps going whether the listener is paying attention or not. Thus, reading words on paper can prevent readers from missing important content in the writing. 

On another note, some proponents of physical books would argue that having a physical copy of a book on one’s shelf is a comfort more so than having an audiobook file on a smartphone.  On rainy days, some people would agree that there is nothing quite like sitting on a couch with a cup of hot chocolate, entering the pages of a novel and be transported to another world. Martin Cothran, editor of Memoria Press' The Classical Teacher magazine, provost of Memoria College, and a Latin, logic, and rhetoric instructor, would agree. In his article “On the Incarnation of Words," when discussing how books are “rendered more significant by being incarnated on the written page," he concludes that “[i]t is not just what is said that matters, but how–and, we could add, on what–it is said” (Cothran). While Cothran loves a good audiobook, he admits there is just something about a physical book, where priding himself on his library of captivating, hardcover classics far exceeds the menial task of reading off the number of audiobooks on his Audible account. He remarks that “when we have a true love for something, our very gestures should suggest a real, physical thing”(Cothran).  Thus, Cothran would contend, the connection made with a physical book is often deeper than that of an audiobook. 

Yet many adults and adolescents may not feel they have time to sit down and read a book. This is where a little multitasking comes in. Audiobooks allow readers to complete their necessary daily jobs while enjoying a science fiction novel or a thrilling biography. People can begin an audiobook on their phone or other electronic device and listen while cleaning their house or driving to work. Nick Buscemi has had experience in multitasking with audiobooks as he worked through a reading challenge in 2018. In his post “Conquering Time and the Digital Age,” Buscemi talks about his experience of balancing work and school with keeping up in his reading challenge. He mentions the fact that he lives in a time where people like to only work on one thing at a time instead of multitasking. These people push off expendable time-fillers such as reading and focus on more goal-oriented achievements like work and education (Buscemi). While there are times when it is appropriate to focus on one thing at a time, there are other times when it is perfectly fine and encouraged to multitask. Listening to audiobooks while performing simple tasks makes the most menial tasks all the more enjoyable. 

Not only does listening to audiobooks make tasks more bearable, but they are also beneficial in aiding overall rhetoric skills. Enhancing one’s vocabulary by being exposed to audiobooks is one way to make someone more confident in their writing and conversation skills. Nick Buscemi, who is a marketing and communications major, mentions how much of his vocabulary has improved because of reading and listening to audiobooks. He explains, “Reading helps us to transition words from our passive vocabulary into our active vocabulary” (Buscemi). He explains that people have come into contact with so many words but most of them are all just stored in the back of their heads. When they are heard in sentences, like when listened to in audiobooks, these words are slowly moved to the active vocabulary which is the vocabulary a person is comfortable using on an everyday basis (Buscemi).  An extensive vocabulary is  beneficial in every aspect of life, and audiobooks are one way in which to achieve that. 

When someone is trying to decide which is better, reading a book or listening to an audiobook, they are really looking at the situation in the wrong way. Reading books and listening to audiobooks are both beneficial, just in contrasting ways. In his article “Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?," psychologist Daniel Willingham explains that “examining how we read and how we listen shows that each is best suited to different purposes, and neither is superior.” (Willingham). A study from the Journal of Neuroscience gives evidence of Willingham’s opinion. In their experiment about how the brain responds to semantic information in different modalities, they found that the results of the experiment suggest that the  “representation of language semantics is independent of the sensory modality” (Deniz et al.). This means that neither reading nor listening is shown to be significantly better than the other. So to achieve the best comprehension, readers must use whichever medium matches their learning style, whether auditory or visual. 

Not only should personal learning style be considered when choosing which method of reading to use, but also personal preference. In a study by Sage Journals on if the modality of the book matters, the evidence shows that all participants, independent of their gender or age, were able to retain an “equal amount of information, regardless of whether they listened to an audiobook, read from an electronic tablet, or both listened and read simultaneously” (Rogowsky et al.). So whether read, listened to, or both at the same time, it really just depends on what the reader prefers. 

So when discussing modes of literature in all their forms, there really is no noticeable winner. All serve different purposes and are convenient to people for varying reasons. Some will prefer the old yellow-paged copy of A Tale of Two Cities, while others may prefer to be transported to the same story through a narrator's passionate voice. The important thing, when it comes to reading, is to do it. All that must be done is to open a book or press play.

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