Telling stories is coded in our DNA; the human drive to pass on wisdom and remember fundamental truths predates written form. Many of the stories we know today stem from oral traditions and have been passed down from storyteller to storyteller without the help of physical cataloguing. In fact, written stories are a relatively recent development to aid in the process of passing along these tales. 

Despite this long history, the introduction of audiobooks to wider audiences has caused a bit of division amongst readers. Concerns such as comprehension and retention sparked debates in the literary community but perhaps the divide is less about the way we read. The lack of perspective that modern readers hold may branch from an absence of a strong oral tradition in the home or community. Oral histories have taken a backseat to the recently preferred written route and have largely diminished in more developed countries. 

Some hesitation stemmed from the idea that it’s more difficult to go back in audiobooks to aid in understanding, whereas in traditional forms, your eyes scan back and forth quickly to understand fully. In academic areas, the differences between reading and listening is clear: readers outperform listeners in difficult scholarly areas. This phenomena, though, can be easily whittled down to an issue with the individual’s insufficient experience with active listening rather than an issue of the medium they consume. Otherwise, the data doesn’t support the fear.

Scientifically speaking, research has shown very few differences between the two forms of story consumption. Audiobook listeners show a similar pattern of retention as conversationalists; they comprehend the gist of a passage faster to compensate for the lack of an instantaneous back-button. A reader reading the traditional hardcopy version of the same book is busy inferring tone and filling in sounds that the audio version provides. In the end, each reader is given a different set of directions but both get off at the same stop.

What happens in the brain when reading versus listening is also surprisingly similar. The parts of your brain that you use for linguistic processing and mental imagery are shown to light up with both versions. If you want to learn more about how we process mental imagery, you might want to go back to the article that was the building block for this one, Reading Is Scientifically Magical. It’s more complicated than you might think, so it’s fascinating that this happens whether reading or listening in almost exactly the same way. 

Where the two mediums may diverge, however, is in the reader’s response to the story. Audiobooks have been shown to elicit a stronger emotional response to the characters and story because listening is a more social experience. Reading is a personalized experience. Your own inner voice is in charge of constructing the scenes. Neither is objectively better; it comes down to personal preference. 

Still, audiobooks have outperformed hardcopies in three areas: maximizing time, aiding literacy efforts with new readers, and giving anyone with dyslexia the opportunity to enjoy a book without the frustration of interpreting text. 

The human brain is incredibly pliable and has evolved to retain stories in whatever form they take. Audiobooks, in a way, have taken us back to an original form of storytelling that many of us may have to re-familiarize ourselves with.