Minnie's Fiction Addiction

There’s a special kind of person who, unprompted, will crawl out of the woodwork to declare: “Audiobooks don’t count as real reading.”
Ah yes, the literary gatekeepers. The people who apparently believe that unless your eyeballs are physically dragging themselves across lines of Times New Roman, you’re not actually absorbing a story, you’re just, I don’t know, vibing with noise?

Let’s break it down.

The Origin of This Nonsense

Somewhere between the invention of podcasts and TikTok BookTokers quoting “it starts with a kiss but ends with a knife,” a certain brand of Book Purist™ decided that listening to a story wasn’t pure enough. That it was cheating. That unless you’re highlighting passages and flipping pages like you’re cramming for your A-levels, it just doesn’t “count.”

Newsflash: this is not the academic decathlon. This is reading for pleasure. And whether I’m devouring a hardcover, swiping through an ebook, or listening to a British narrator voice twelve different characters with Oscar-worthy emotion, guess what? I’m still experiencing the story. I’m still engaging with plot, character development, theme, and emotional destruction. All the good stuff. I’m just doing it while folding laundry. Or walking the dog. Or lying face down on the floor because life is a lot.

Reading Is Reading. Full Stop.

If we’re being technical, the human brain doesn’t actually care if you read with your eyes or ears. Processing language through listening activates the same neural networks involved in comprehension and retention as reading text.
📚 Reference: Daniel Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, explains that “listening to an audiobook is not cheating,” because comprehension is similar unless the material is very complex or abstract.

There are studies that back this up. One study from the University of California, Berkeley, found minimal differences between comprehension via listening and reading when the content was the same.
📚 Reference: Rogowsky, B.A., Calhoun, B.M., & Tallal, P. (2016). “Does modality matter? The effects of reading, listening, and dual modality on comprehension.” The Journal of Educational Psychology.

And let’s not even start on how ableist the “audiobooks don’t count” crowd tends to be. For visually impaired readers, people with dyslexia, ADHD, or anyone whose life just doesn’t allow for an hour of silent page-turning a day, audiobooks are a lifeline.
📚 Reference: The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) promotes audiobooks as a crucial accessibility tool, and the British Dyslexia Association supports audiobooks as a valid form of literacy engagement.

Dismissing that isn’t just snobby, it’s exclusionary.

The Irony? These People Probably Listen to True Crime Podcasts

The same people who throw a fit about audiobooks “not being real reading” are also ten episodes deep into a podcast about a murder in small-town Ohio. But sure, that’s educational. That’s fine. That’s “different.” 🙄

What’s the Real Issue?

Is it jealousy? Maybe they’re mad they didn’t think of syncing an audiobook with their commute and now they’re stuck rereading The Great Gatsby in the bath for the twelfth time. Maybe they secretly enjoy audiobooks but hate that it doesn’t involve annotated margins and a tote bag that says “I’d rather be reading.”

Or maybe they just enjoy telling people what they can’t do, and audiobooks are their latest victim.

Let People Enjoy Books

At the end of the day, the goal is to engage with stories. To learn, to escape, to be moved. How you do that is nobody else’s business. Whether you’re turning pages or pressing play, if you’re immersed in a book, you’re reading. And anyone who says otherwise deserves to be trapped in an endless loop of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” narrated by a sentient robot.

So next time someone tries to hit you with that “audiobooks aren’t real reading” energy?
Just smile, press play, and let them live in their paper-only purgatory.

Sources & Further Reading:

• Willingham, Daniel T. (2018). “Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?” New York Times.
• Rogowsky, B.A., Calhoun, B.M., & Tallal, P. (2016). “Does modality matter? The effects of reading, listening, and dual modality on comprehension.” Journal of Educational Psychology.
• Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB): https://www.rnib.org.uk
• British Dyslexia Association: https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk