I can only "listen" to an audio book when I am not multi-tasking.
Otherwise I find myself zone out of the book, and miss a huge chunk of it, then rewind to the point I thought I missed and rewind too much. Realize I have heard it before and let myself zone out again etc.
I realize how inefficient live lectures are and how much I must have missed through my life.
I think multi-tasking with an audiobook only works when the other task is one you can perform automatically (e.g. highway driving). If you're doing anything that requires any thought or decision making, then you might as well not bother with the book.
Also, I think the kind of audiobook is important:
1. Fiction usually works best, since narratives and action are easy to follow.
2. Simple non-fiction is worse but still doable (I'm thinking bestseller-type popular nonfiction and narrative history).
3. Nonfiction with technical or conceptually challenging content is the worst, and really requires full undivided attention.
I agree low-attention multitasking is what works.
Standing on the bus, running, kneading dough, ok.
Listening to a book and trying to code, no chance.
I disagree on what kind work best, for me "divulgation-level" non-fiction is the one. Think Malcolm Gladwell.
Actual fiction can be complex because it requires attention on who is talking, where they are, whether you're in a time skip or flashbacks etc. Divulgation doesn't.
For example, I've recently listened to The World Until Yesterday[0] and Masters of Doom[1].
They are both reasonably light, they tend to hit the same concepts over and over, there are few "characters", and generally missing 30 seconds of narration has close to zero impact.
But also, I'm fairly sure reading skills is what counts the most. I'm not even sure it's a matter of "being best" as it is a matter of a reader just sounding better for a specific person.
I wonder if that is because if you miss a part of the narrative, you can usually make out what is going on. It is rare when an author doesn't hang a lantern on an important plot device.
I agree with multi-tasking only with other "automatic tasks", but regarding the kind of audiobook my list looks like yours in reverse. I've listened to dozens of audiobooks and by far my favorites are the nonfiction with technical or conceptually challenging content.
For what it's worth, I find the radio enormously distracting as well. In fact, I find all conversation happening in the car distracting.
I've narrowly avoided several accidents because I was able to hear the other vehicle approaching, because I always pay full attention to my surroundings. When the radio is on though, or passengers are talking, it becomes very difficult to notice those types of subtle cues.
For this reason I have an explicit "no talking" rule when I have others in the car with me. Doesn't make me the most popular person when it comes to carpooling, but whatever, I'll take safety over idle chatter anytime.
Unless you're an unskilled driver, driving becomes "automatic" in much the same way that riding a bike does. When you ride a bike, are you concentrating on not falling over? Maybe for the first week or so that you're learning...
Don't you ever drive somewhere and realize you have no idea memory of doing several of the steps involved in driving? I've been driving ~15 years, and can certainly say that at this point my daily vehicle operations are not all performed with full focus. I still check for traffic, and drive safely, but it is more automatic than just about anything else I do.
Substitute in "riding a bike" for driving, and I bet you do the same.
Your comment got me thinking: in the past, the main ways of learning were through lecture and reading. I wonder if live lectures have always been as poorly efficient as they are now. With the invention of audio recording, video, internet etc... I could see how our modern ability to concentrate on one long topic have been reduced. I think back to Greek and Roman times when oratory was a larger part of education and I presume (perhaps without good reason) that the listening skills of the audience was greater.
Lecture sucks as a medium. There's a pile of education research on this. We succeed in spite of the shortcomings of lecture, not because of its strengths... And a lot of people who don't succeed in lecture-based structures cget a better chance at success as we could deploy other learning media.
I completely agree and I've also seen the studies about retention rates of various types of learning. The confounder in my mind is that obviously all these studies were done since the advent of newer media options. I'm just wondering if we were able to redo the studies in people from long ago if there would be any difference at all? Possibly not, but it makes me wonder if there were, is there a way to train ourselves to learn better learn for lectures. Secondly, even if it is possible to be a better "lecture learner", is it even worth it (for example is there a ceiling effect?)
It really depends on what I'm doing. If I'm drawing or walking, for instance, I can do those things and focus on the book. If I'm trying to read something else or program, then it's always a matter of focusing on one or the other, and then it's like you say.
The rewinding bit is why rewinding, bookmarking, and navigation features of audio players are critical to me. I really hate bare-bones audio player interfaces that make it a chore to do any of those things.
I feel like the main factor in whether I can do something and listen to an audiobook is whether I need to use language for the other task. For example, I can cook while listening to an audiobook, but I have to pause if I'm going to refer to the recipe, even though the process of alternately stirring a base and slicing vegetables without chopping off my finger requires more concentration than determining from the recipe which measuring spoon I need.
I have the same problem. Even watching youtube lecture videos, I have to rewind so many times (just 10-30 seconds each time usually) that it takes an average of 2 hours to watch a 1 hour lecture video. (Though part of that is because I also pause the video frequently, either to take pen-and-paper notes, or spend time thinking while trying to understand the concepts).
Live lecture is a total disaster for me now. I don't even bother.
I wonder if a similar strategy wouldn't work best for watching youtube lectures
just go straight through the first time, with the expectation that you'll need to watch it a few times to truly grasp it
--------
also the second strategy seems useful too
"2. After finishing the classic, read a good deal of the secondary literature, keeping in mind that you now are looking for answers to some particular questions. That will structure and improve your investigation"
ie - after you've watched a lecture, see if you can find a different source exploring the same topic
sometimes seeing something described in different ways really helps something click
Funny thing is that I was a pretty good student, and was known to be able to drown out things and concentrate for long periods.
The question is: Has the mobile phone changed my attention capacity? Or am I still relatively good, but humans are just bad at concentrating for a long periods and we should never have invented the lecture model?
I have found many podcasts that use this format of mixing the narration with voices and sounds from people in the story and this is so distracting and annoying to me. I never go beyond one episode when that's the format.
In my personal experience, I have always found it that the books I've listened are the first to fade from my memory. Second came books consumed as ebooks and last, old fashioned paper books.
I believe that the act of touching the book, carrying with you everywhere, leaving it on the table, seems to make its content much more memorable for me than reading it as an ebook or listening to it.
I find it that I still remember the details of hundreds of books I have read as a teenager, while I sometimes don't even realize that I've already read a certain book that I've read as an ebook or listened to.
Honestly I don't find much difference. I think the quality of the books and the writing matters quite a great deal. A brilliant book is memorable whether you read it or listen to it. Audiobooks tend to be more tied up with my memories of (bicycle) commuting.
I find it easier to listen to dull books rather than reading them, because there's an innate flow of pace with the audio version, rather than having my attention drift, so it's easier to get through the darn thing.
Definitely agree with this. We have to engage more of our active brain to consume physical media like paper books. eBooks remove a lot of the tactile reality, and audiobooks is a wholly different format.
I've found that simply talking to another person about the ideas/stories that I've read in any media solidifies them in my brain in a more profound way than any other method I know of. It's become my primary way of learning new material - read/listen about it, then explain it to someone else who is interested.
I feel the same with tech books... there seems to be some kind of "spatial memory" that works for me. I don't have a very good memory in general, but I can pick up a reference book I haven't touched for years and flick straight the page I was looking for.
When using ebooks I spend most of my time trying to figure out a search term that will get me back to a certain page. It's not a huge deal I guess, but just something interesting I noticed.
I've found that listening to the audio book while reading (usually in ebook format) causes things to sink in most, with reading aloud to myself a close second.
A novel or technical book, both methods seem to work. Takes longer though.
A friend of mine uses an app to read at the same time that he listens to the text for studying. He argues that in this way he doesn't loose concentration and that he can choose at which speed he wants to go.
There is evidence that we build a mental map of the story based on a book's physical characteristics. Then we can pinpoint some events in the storyline because we know more or less the physical location on those events in the book (the object). Eg: when we read the book, turning pages, we build the storyline in our head but also a map based on the physical path of the pages.
there could be other things at play like the fact that you have more time on your hands when you are a teenager compared to later in life when you have to work. and if you are working more and skimping on sleep then not all of the things you read will get into your long term memory.
less distractions as well depending on when you were a teenager
Agree about audio but ebooks stay the longest for me, as they lend themselves to note taking so well, are in a context that allows me to quickly switch to research mode, and encourage you to create your own index while reading.
Completely agree. When I recall a passage from a book, I remember where on the page the passage was. In an e-book that's an ephemeral concept as you change font size and rotate the reading device or switch between devices.
I stopped buying ebooks completely within the last year after being quite a fan and owning 3 kindle readers. I'll still buy from a publisher that will send me non-DRM in multiple formats. At least then I feel like I own it instead of renting.
Lots of hate for the audio book and multitasking in the top comments here. I do the multitasking audio book thing and I really enjoy it, with some limits. There are better times of the day to listen to an audio book, and there are better subject materials for the format.
If I read a book before bedtime, the reading lamp keeps me awake. Listening to the audio book in the dark doesn't disrupt sleep as much. When I'm really enjoying a particular book, I do listen while I wash the dishes or in public transit, but this means I really like the book.
Do I listen to Tolstoy or the latest machine learning audiobooks? No. I listen to zombie trash novels and the like. Occasionally I stumble into something more worthy of a physical book. I've introduced authors I found in audiobook form to my book club.
The other thing, if a book is so uninteresting that I am constantly rewinding, then it's a shiat book and I simply move on to a more engaging book. I have 200 other audiobooks marked for reading so there is no shortage of possibly better books available to me.
I want to recommend a great source of free, public domain audiobooks: Librivox.[1]
It's like the Project Gutenberg of audiobooks, recorded by volunteers.
The quality of their readers varies, but there are some surprisingly good readers on there, such as my favorite so far, David Clarke, who did a superb reading of The Count of Monte Cristo.[2]
Podcasts were my gateway to Librivox, Librivox was my gateway to Audible.
Librivox is fantastic; however, our copyright laws are just too restrictive. Librivox is the kind of thing that shows the immense value of a robust public domain.
I use librivox material to learn foreign languages which is awesome, because I can have an e-book and audio book and read words while native speaker is pronouncing them. I have used Anna Karenina and Tom Sawyer.
This seems like such a "get off my lawn" tone for an article.
Audiobooks don't really work for me. Maybe they work for other people, if so good for them. Maybe it doesn't work as well for them as reading the actual book would, but surely it's better than not being exposed to the material at all no?
Perhaps there is something to be said for people spending more time letting their minds wander and ruminating about stuff rather than self-distraction. But that necessitates an argument for silence and boredom, not an argument against Audiobooks in particular.
Huh. I use audiobooks when I'm cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, doing chores, but I don't speed read them. If you're looking for suggestions:
- Plugged -- Eoin Colfer
- Screwed -- Eoin Colfer
- Half {a King, the World, a War} -- Joe Abercrombie
- Also everything else written by Joe Abercrombie
- Seveneves -- Neal Stephenson
Sometimes it's not about how good the book is, but about the reader. That's the difference in the audio medium. Plugged and Screwed were books I only picked up because the reader of Half a King read them. They were stellar in audio form, but I don't normally go for those types of books in written form.
This can also up new avenues for how to spend time, outside of the multitasking case. I was staying with a friend a few months ago, and before bed we laid around for an hour listening to an audiobook that I wanted to share. It was like being a family in the olden days sitting around listening to a radio. Really great experience. I can't recommend it enough.
The main thing I don't like about audio is not being able to highlight or reflect on things, even re-reading portions several times to really learn something.
I like being able to cross reference materials and go deeper on things I read, and when I re-read a book, I see notes that I had forgotten about, which is near impossible with audio.
It seems its all about high amounts of shallow exposure to different concepts, good for "knowing what you don't know" but not really learning what you don't know.
I have done it fairly extensively for many years now. Generally, the book should be a light read, and the task fairly mundane. If the task is very simple, then "reading" this way might be more better than listening to an audiobook sitting down and doing nothing else. For more complicated tasks I am usually expecting to skip dozens of seconds of the audiobook now and again, so I either choose a book I don't mind reading poorly, or a podcast. For tasks that require reasonable amount of attention, I sometimes do lighthearted podcasts, but that comes with accepting slower work. Sort of half working, half passing time.
Books past a certain complexity, or ones you want to read well, or quickly, are best read the old way.
I'd say audiobooks are awesome for squeezing that extra use/fun out your time, but they have to be done in a smart way.
This doesn't work for me at all. Example: I'm reading the Vital Question by Nick Lane and I need to stop often just to digest what's written on the page to make sure I fully understand it. I don't even think the book is particularly academic, I'm just below average on a lot of topics. For something that pushes my capacity I can't imagine being a passive reader and getting the most out of it.
I think this works for lighter topics, but I question the point of having something in the background and just hoping to gain value from it through... luck? I'm not sure what else to call the serendipitous moment when you're actively paying attention and the audiobook also happens to be on a section that's insightful.
>I think this works for lighter topics, but I question the point of having something in the background and just hoping to gain value from it through... luck?
I hear you. I've been an Audible subscriber for over 10 years, and I love audio books. But I don't find them much less "work" than reading. It's very easy to zone out, and more difficult than a book to get back on track.
I've resigned myself to keeping the non-fiction light, and going in with the understanding I'll probably have to listen to the book a few times.
Audible subscription and wireless, noise canceling headphones. Listening a book while taking one hour walk from office to home is a pleasure.
Noise canceling headphones are important for me as they cut down the traffic noise. Audible subscription makes buying easy and removes the "is this book worth this much" decision.
One problem with the audiobooks is that you can't flip through the pages or search to recall something. Would be nice if there was for example audio+kindle combo subscription availabe.
Multitasking does not work for me. If I don't rfocus on the book, I miss it completely. In a sense this is meditative experience. With regular book I just pause reading, with audio book I try to keep other thoughts away.
I've also been listening while walking around/using public transport for many years, you can usually just pause the thing when you're in a situation that requires more attention (e.g. crossing) but generally it's better than walking while reading.
The problem is more that if many things are happening you tend to lose track of the book.
But that's why apps have "go back 30 second" shortcuts.
I live in a suburb, we don't have many sidewalks and we don't walk anywhere. I've been yelled at and nearly run over for using crosswalks, and walking to get where you're going is something only the poorest of the poor do here. Sad, really.
Strange article. As if there was something wrong with audiobooks because of the guilt-by-association of some people using them to cram as much information as possible into their lives. And even there, there not much substantive criticism of that practice.
Audio books saved my sanity when I had a 30 minute commute. I actually looked forward to the drive knowing I'd get to hear more from Off To Be The Wizard.
A book series with compelling characters, an interesting world, and "things that happen" is perfect for driving. I don't mind a 10 hour day of driving with a good book or even my regular 2000 mile drives with a good series. I figure the $2/hour for content is just part of the cost of driving.
I had the same feeling with that same series. I used to look forward to my 30 minute commute to/from work. I'd save the book for the commute and it would always be something to look forward to. Have you found any other books similar to that?
I used to read a lot as a kid, to the point that I wouldn't get much sleep. Finally my grandfather gave me a couple of audiobooks he had on cassette, and that was the beginning of an obsession that continued for decades. I've variously gotten into old time radio, unabridged audio books, copies of audiobooks that were only made for the visually impaired at the LoC...everything. I used Audible for a little while, but I like to actually have a choice of player.
I love to use them for long drives, chores, and when I played more video games I found them to be an essential companion. I have strong associations between certain games and certain books (a scene in some Ludlum novel and Grand Theft Auto III by a dam spring to mind) and it's still a pleasant way to set the mind in neutral.
That said, I tend to want to actually read a book that I care about to any real extent, but I'm also the type who re-reads a lot. I found the unabridged Wheel of Time to be something special out of all the audiobooks I've enjoyed though.
Sorry for babbling, I'm a bit passionate about this, although I get a bit sad when people don't read and just listen to books; although I think it's better than nothing for sure.
Wheel of Time! I'm in my second re-listen now, book 6 or so. It's such an elaborate and well thought-out world, and of course 14 books that read as a single big story postpones the post-book depression... Well, not quite indefinitely, especially if you read other things like The Martian in between (that's my favorite book btw), but it limits it to once a year and a half rather than every month and a half.
Your strategy is definitely the one I try to use, otherwise the let-down is just... crushing, especially in a world as fully realized as WoT. I'm cautiously looking forward to seeing what can be done with an HBO/Showtime kind of tv series with the property.
If only Robert Jordan had lived another decade or so... The Sanderson books weren't bad, it just struck me as kind of... rushed, especially the finale.
I'm becoming increasingly worried about GRR Martin. It'll be sad if the only conclusion is the increasingly butchered TV series.
As a fan of series, I can say that you've achieved missile-lock on my fantasy taste; I would further that recommendation to anyone else reading this who like WoT.
People must not read fast because audiobooks in most cases are soul crushingly slow if you give them your full attention so I cannot conceive of listening to an audiobook and not multitasking.
I've been an Audible subscriber for a few years and I listen to most audio books at between 2 and 2.25x speed. The Android app alows you to adjust it right up to 3x and in general it's still perfectly comprehendable at the individual word level even at that speed.
you have to be careful how you structure your sentences, or at least I should pay more attention. There is no way triple speed was comfortably understandable. 2 to 2.25 would be a lot already. 3x is probably a ludicrous maximum that no user should could complain about.
> New research presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego shows that blind people can understand speech at ultrafast rates, well beyond what a sighted person can comprehend.
I'll agree that 3x to my ear sounds insane, but so did 2x a few years ago. I've definitely adapted to listening at higher speeds as I've got used to it. I can believe that some people are comfortable with it.
But you're right, sentence structure does play a part. I've listened to Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) and Excession (Iain M Banks) recently and both I had to drop to 2x because I couldn't follow at 2.25x. The latter because of the long ship names that sounded like sentences took too long for my brain to parse out and comprehended, and the quite technical language. The former because of the slightly old fashioned and uncommon language. On the other hand, with another recent book, Under The Skin (Michel Faber), I was totally comfortable at 2.25x. The narrator was nice and clear with no strong accent, and the language was modern and descriptive but not overly complex.
I don't understand what's wrong with multitasking in this context. It is really easy to listen to an audiobook while doing some light cleaning or during commute. I love reading and I'm trying to increase my paperback collection but I think everyone should at least give it a shot, my recommendation would be Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter - it's an awesome experience.
Such a strange frame for this article: Some people like to listen to lots of audiobooks, and get more reading in that way. It must be addictive! Let's tie it to trends we like to finger-wag about, like multitasking and productivity culture!
Maybe some people just like reading/listening to books rather than watching TV and noodling on their phones all the time? And that's OK?
I listen to probably 4-5 audio books a month from Audible, mostly fantasy. There's no way I could listen to that many books a month if I didn't do it by multi-tasking. (I also listen to just about every book at 1.5x speed; usually 1x speed is too slow for some narrators)
Here's things I can do while easily following my audio books: cleaning (house, car, dishes, etc.), cooking, brushing teeth, running, driving, cycling (Using a Aftershokz Bluez bone conduction headphones so I can still hear what's around me). The majority of my daily listening time is from cooking and commuting by bicycle (I spend about 45-60 minutes every day cycling).
Things I can't do while listening to audio books: programming, watching multimedia, playing a video game. In other words, things that require high mental concentration. If I try to listen to an audio book while programming, I'll either not follow what's happening in the audio book, or I'll not be able to concentrate on programming.
Audible.com pays $50 a signup. They are able to pay so much because they're masters of screwing their customers.
Here's the magic. You get an audiobook a month for $16. But "fine print" once you accrue 6 credits, you get literally nothing for your money. You just stay at 6 credits. Every month, paying, and getting nothing in return.
In his book "On Writing" (which is excellent, and also narrated by the author in the audiobook version — highly recommended) Stephen King mentions that he reads ~60 books a year and that he fits his reading into any 10-minute chunks he can find throughout his day. Waiting room, bus stop, ball game — it's all enough to get a bit of reading done. After hearing that, I decided to load up my phone with audiobooks and put them on whenever I'm walking anywhere, even if my destination is just a few blocks away. Works amazingly well, and now I'm reading a ton more than I ever have in the last decade.
Even better, I think text-to-speech is basically good enough at this point to read books without an audio version! (I've found that I need to concentrate a lot harder when I'm listening to a OSX text-to-speech recording, but maybe there are better services.)
I love hearing audiobooks or podcasts while playing games (RTS or action games). It's interesting that later when I play the game again it kind of bring memories of the podcast themes as well.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on cassette tape checked out form my local library. Got lost in those audio books as a kid after reading the books themselves.
My sense is that there are certain books that can be 'performed' in audio and they are best suited for the format. For academic or theory books, less so, although anything read by the author can give additional insight (or be incredibly annoying depending on their voice).
- audio so I can still change trains or do the dishes. Mostly pocket + ivona text to speech on my phone (takes a little effort to find an apk, the app was kinda unpublished at some point).
- a bit more than double the speed to match my reading/thinking speed. Otherwise I tend to drift of in thoughts and have to rewind. If I hear a lecture and play a computer game I stick to normal speed.
I started listening to audiobooks as an alternative to reading. With work and other activities it began too hard to commit to a book. I would start but never have the time to progress. Now I just take my headphone with me and listen as I travel from place to place. I take the metro 45 mins each way during the week. I'm so glad that time is spent with a book as oppose to just listening to music.
Sort of a side note, but I've noticed that there are some activities I can do while listening to audiobooks and others I can't.
For instance, during my day job as a software engineer, when I am doing any kind of visual work, audio is easy to listen to. Things like building UIs with web tech like HTML and CSS.
When I am doing anything more traditionally related to software it is a 100% shift, I can't follow a thing.
It is not only America; for a lot of people I know here in the EU it is the only way they consume books these days. But multitasking? Maybe it is just me, but I read much faster than those books (or youtube vids) do audio and I type faster than I talk. Audio is not a very efficient thing at least for me personally (but I know more people have that).
audiobooks are the best way for me to take in information, and thankfully my weirdo brain, while very very very bad at processing written words, can process spoken words quite well. I'm usually listening to an audiobook on 1.5 speed most of the day, in fact I'm listening to The End of Power by Moisés Naím as I write this. :)
I love audiobooks, and have discovered the wonderful wispersync feature to seamlessly pick up my kindle or audible audiobook, which ever is most convenient. I highly recommend the Aubrey/Maturin series read by Patrick Tull. Currently listening to The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman.
"When one reads too quickly or too slowly, one understands nothing" - Pascal
The same likely applies when reading too often and too little.
My brain needs time to synthesize information. I'd be very impressed if the subject of that little anecdote at the beginning of this article--that guy who apparently reads even while brushing his teeth--recalls more than 30% of the content he listens to.
I can't try to do any work and pay attention to an audio book or a podcast at the same time. Music, or generic TV in the background, sure, but that's effectively white noise that doesn't even register.
Audiobooks and podcasts are fantastic for driving, though - if I go visit back home, it's a three hour, pretty monotonous, trip each way, so I can get into a Hard-core History show or a few chapters of an unabridged audio book. I'm not sure why driving and listening go together so well, unless it is just decades of training at this point.
TTS is what I use. I picked up a used old kindle keyboard, one of the versions that still had the feature. I slip that into my jacket pocket when I go on walks. It's nice because you're not limited on selection. The robotic nature of the voice fades away after an hour or two of listening to it.
Otherwise I find myself zone out of the book, and miss a huge chunk of it, then rewind to the point I thought I missed and rewind too much. Realize I have heard it before and let myself zone out again etc.
I realize how inefficient live lectures are and how much I must have missed through my life.