Are Audiobooks a Substitute for Reading?

Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective. Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.

Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is January the 7th, 2021, and we're going to be following up today in the program with a conversation that we started yesterday.

Reading the Bible First

On yesterday's program, I talked about the value of reading books in 2021. I talked about the fact that we should first and foremost be concerned with reading the Bible. As Spurgeon said, we should visit other books often, but we should live in the Bible.

And so we should focus on the Word of God first. And I know my personal discipline is that before I read anything else through the day, I try to read my daily Bible reading, which currently right now my wife and I are going, We are in a six month through the Bible program that we started a few months ago.

So we're about halfway through now, which means we read about seven or eight chapters of the Bible every day. So our early morning Bible reading is often very intense and very long. And as I did state the other day, I often listen to that text as I'm preparing for my.

Day.

Are Audiobooks as Good as Reading?

And so on today's program, I want to talk about whether or not listening is as good as reading. And I want to say from the outset, because as I said, a couple of days ago, I talked about reading the Bible and I mentioned listening to the Bible yesterday.

I talked about reading extra biblical books and I mentioned that, you know, you can listen to those books. And I know I do often listen to books. But the question is, is listening to a book as good as reading it?

Now, I know some of you, especially those of you who love to read, are probably screaming at the radio right now or listening device, however you're listening to the program, and you're saying, No, how could anyone think that listening to a book is the same as reading.

It?

And so I want to go ahead and say that I feel like I understand how you feel. And I do in my heart feel like you may have a point, but I want to come at this in two.

Ways.

One, I'm going to cite a particular article that came out a few years ago in Time Magazine. It came out in 2018 and the question in the article was, are audio books as good for you as reading? Here's what the experts say.

And there's an interesting study that is cited in the article and I want to cite the study in just a moment as well. But before I do that, I want to say this isn't a scientific podcast. I'm not a scientist and I am certainly not a researcher when it comes to understanding how the brain takes in information.

And when I share this with you today, I am going to be sharing at least one scientific article about it. But for the most part, I'm just going to be sharing my own personal experience and I understand experiences differ.

And I understand that experiences are ultimately per the individual. So there's no way that my experience is going to be universal to everyone, but perhaps I can share with you some thoughts that I've had about listening to books versus reading books and how I feel about it and how I explain it when I talk to people.

And so that's sort of what today is about, just sort of asking the question, is reading a book and listening to the book the same thing? Can we describe it the same way? Should we describe it the same way?

So that's going to be the conversation for today. But let's start out with the article. Let's try to take a scientific approach. First, again, the title of the article is Are Audiobooks as Good for You as Reading?

This is from Time Magazine. It was by Markham Hyde, September 6, 2018. And I'm just going to read the first part of the article. He says, Even for people who love books, finding the opportunity to read can be a challenge.

Many then rely on audiobooks, a convenient alternative to old-fashioned reading. You can listen to the latest bestseller while commuting or cleaning up the house. But is listening to a book really the same as reading one?

And then he quotes Beth Rogoski, an associate professor of education at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. She said this, I was a fan of audiobooks, but I always viewed them as cheating. So for a 2016 study, Rogoski put her assumptions to the test.

And this was the way she did the test. One group in her study listened to sections of Unbroken, a non-fiction book about World War II by Laura Hillenbrand, while a second group read the same parts on an e-reader.

She included a third group that both read and listened at the same time. Afterward, everyone took a quiz designed to measure how well they had absorbed the material, and quote, we found no significant differences in comprehension between reading, listening, or reading and listening simultaneously.

This was according to simply one study. I'm sure that other studies have been done. Perhaps you may cite a study that says something differently. In fact, if you have different information, I'd like for you to share it with me.

And I want to spend this time for a moment to say if you have something to share with the program, please send a message in to calvinistpodcast at gmail .com and I will respond either through the email or I may even respond on the program.

So if you are a listener and you would like to comment, please do so by emailing calvinistpodcast at gmail .com. Now, I do want to mention the article goes further. The article goes into talking about some of what was gleaned by the research that was done by Rogowski and a few others.

And ultimately it concludes in the end by saying ultimately that there are still things to be studied. There are still things to consider. And so the article is not necessarily taking a hard position.

It's simply just making a few points. So if you want to look at the article again, it's Time Magazine, time .com. You can go to our audiobooks as good for you as reading. And it's by Markham Hyde, H-E-I-D, September 6, 2018.

Personal Experience with Audiobooks

So I just thought that was an interesting article or interesting part of the article where Beth Rogowski, the associate professor of education at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania was referenced as having done a study and it showed at least as far as comprehension was concerned there was no discernible difference in the study that she did.

So that brings me to my personal experience. I love to listen to books. I listen to books all the time and a few years ago I owned a screen printing business. I did that as a side business and I did that for three years.

I printed thousands of t-shirts and boy howdy did I spend a lot of time behind the printing press and if you've never done screen printing before it's a rather taxing process on the body but not really on the mind.

It's mass production. You're putting shirts on. You're printing them. You're pulling shirts off. You're putting them in the oven and it really is very redundant what you do with your hands. So I would spend that time listening to audiobooks.

I had at that time an account with audible .com which is I will recommend them if you're into audiobooks the $14 .95 a month you get one free book a month that basically pays for itself if you listen to a book a month which I usually did more than that but if you listen to at least one book a month it will pay for itself and again audible is not a sponsor of this program.

I'm not getting paid anything to recommend them to you but that's and you may say well I don't have $14 .95 a month disposable income. Okay well your local library also has books, audiobooks that you can get and for free so consider that as well.

There are several free resources that you can use and also you know there are audible I think is connected with Amazon. Your local library obviously is connected with the public library system but there are several different sources out there to get audiobooks and there's a lot of audiobooks on sermon audio as well.

Now some of the ones on sermon audio are not as professionally done. They're done by people in their homes sometimes sitting behind their computers much like I am right now and they simply read a text but a lot of the books on sermon audio aren't available anywhere else because it's books like Puritan Works and things like that.

Things you're not going to find on audible or something like that. You're not going to find books by, you're probably not going to find books by Richard Baxter and things like that you know the Puritans on audible but you might find them on sermon audio so there's a lot of different ways and places that they're available.

Some performances and that's what they call it when they read the book they call it a performance so these are voice artists who are reading them. Some are good, some are better than others. I got to the point where when I was listening when I was screen printing I would listen at double the speed of normal because I got so used to listening and hearing what I was listening to that I could pick up and comprehend and discern even at double speed and so that allowed me to listen to a book that would normally take 15 hours I was able to listen to it in seven and a half hours and so there was a lot that could be done and sometimes I would print all day.

Saturdays I would usually have two or three orders to fill I'd have to print those out sometimes seven or eight hours behind the printing press. I'd get a whole book in one day which is something I never could have done if I sat down to read it and this is where I want to compare actually reading it and somebody says well yes but if you read it it would take you longer therefore your mind would have more time to comprehend it your mind would have more time to digest it and you're seeing it.

There's the combination of the visual and the thought of understanding it and I believe that that's true and I do believe there is some added value to reading a book but I think it can also be a it can sort of be a double-edged sword because I know that for myself sometimes reading words on a page I read sometimes very slowly and it's hard for me to maintain thought on the train of thought as I'm going through and this is actually an issue for a lot of people when they're reading they tend to read slower than they think and so you finish reading a page and you realize you didn't really comprehend what you just read and you have to start over and read the whole thing again.

And I tend to retain more of what I hear than what I read on a page especially if it's something that I'm learning. If it's something that I'm interested in I tend to connect with it and and and listening is better for me.

But if I am trying to if I am trying to investigate something down to the level of picking out the grammar like for instance when I'm studying for a sermon if I'm trying to determine grammar and syntax and things like that then I need to see it because just listening to it sometimes I might miss nuances.

So I'll give you an example every week I prepare multiple sermons. My main sermon is my Sunday morning Lord's Day sermon. But I also teach on Wednesday nights. I teach Thursday mornings at set free and when the academy is in session I teach Thursday evenings at the academy.

So sometimes I'm preparing multiple lessons per week not every week but but sometimes during the year I'm slammed with lesson preparation and what I will do is the text that I am preaching on. I will read it.

I print it out on a piece of paper. I don't even use my Bible. I print it out on a piece of paper and I take a pen and I read it slowly and I write and I circle and I make marks and I connect you know nouns and pronouns and I connect the verbs the you know how they're being how they're functioning in the sentence.

And I write draw pictures but but again that's that's not really that's not reading. That's that is I'm doing the work of exegesis that's the that's that's going through the process of studying the text.

But that's not what I do with my daily Bible reading. My daily Bible reading I put it on and I listen to it. Because I'm I'm I'm I'm simply wanting to hear God's word and I want to absorb God's word. So I think that there's a place for both.

And I think the question is what are you hoping to accomplish. So let's go back to yesterday's program. Yesterday's program I recommended reading a book that is an extra biblical book whether it be a Christian book or maybe uh an extra an outside Christian work maybe a fictional book like I mentioned um the works of George Orwell yesterday that I had read a few years ago and I said I read it but actually the truth is I listened to it.

And so the question is is that a lie. And that's that's another thing I've had to deal with. Sort of you know when I say I've read it well I feel like if I've listened to a book then I have I have I have gone through it I have comprehended it I know what is in the book.

But sometimes I'm careful because I don't want to ever misrepresent myself. A lot of times I'll say I've gone through the book. Um and when I say I've gone through the book normally that's my way of rather than saying I've read it I will say I've gone through it as if to say I've I've listened to it and and so I don't know you know I'm not trying to.

I'm certainly not trying to be dishonest in any way but um if I've listened to it I've gone through it. If I've listened to it I've understood it. And uh for me it works and I and I think it can work for you.

If you are a person like me who is a person who learns by listening but some people aren't that way. Some people need to see the page. Some people do better by seeing the page and I don't think that necessarily one is always greater than the other.

I think it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish. So I recommend to you uh this year again trying to incorporate more into your uh into your reading list more into your uh taking in of information and whether you do that by reading it whether you do that by listening to it I think is is really going to be up to you and your particular learning style.

I don't think there's any shame in listening to a book. Certainly uh there can be great value in it. And again some of you may be saying well I think it has to be read to to to really have the value. I don't necessarily agree but I do understand that there can be some things that are gleaned in reading that maybe you don't get in listening but I think the other way is true as well.

Sometimes there are things you get in listening that you don't necessarily get in reading. One of those things is consistency when you're again when I'm reading oftentimes I find myself getting lost and having to go back and there's these are just little issues that I have.

But when I'm listening there's a consistent and it's a consistency that continues throughout the book and I like that and so it's been valuable for me again as I said from the start of today's program this is all opinion.

You can take it and do with it what you will. But I will say this in this year as it's coming up I would recommend that you engage in some form of either reading or listening to good books and a lot of books today are available in multiple formats.

You can get them on your phone to read. You can get them in on an e-reader. You can get the hardback paperback edition or you can get the audiobook. And my recommendation would certainly be to do one of those things and increase your reading in 2021.

Closing Encouragement and Gospel Reminder

So I hope today has been an encouragement to you to do just that and if you have questions about reading or listening to books and you'd like to send a question in please do so at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.

Thank you for listening today to coffee with a calvinist. My name is keith foskey and i've been your calvinist.

May god bless you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of coffee with a calvinist. If you enjoyed the program please take a moment to subscribe and provide us feedback. We love to receive your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.

As you go about your day remember this. Jesus christ came to save sinners. All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect savior. He is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him.

May god be with you.