BENEFITS:
1. Audiobooks Are Accessible
For many people, traditional reading is challenging. Those with visual impairments, dyslexia, or other conditions may find audiobooks an empowering alternative. They allow these readers to enjoy the beauty of literature without physical limitations. Audiobooks are also a boon for busy people who find it hard to carve out time to sit with a book but can listen while commuting, exercising, or doing chores. For them, audiobooks are a way to fold literature into their daily routines.
2. Listening Is a Legitimate Form of Literary Engagement
Listening engages the brain in ways that are both similar to and distinct from reading words on a page. Audiobooks can enhance comprehension and bring stories to life through performance. Skilled narrators can add layers of nuance to a story, offering vocal inflections, accents, and tone that reflect a character’s personality and emotions. In some cases, this can make the story even more vivid than silent reading. Plus, the human voice has always been a primary medium for storytelling—oral traditions predate written ones by thousands of years!
3. They Expand Genre and Language Exposure
Audiobooks often make trying new genres or exploring books in another language more approachable. A beautifully narrated audiobook can immerse listeners in a genre or language they may have found intimidating in print form. For instance, historical novels with complex prose or nonfiction with dense concepts can feel more digestible with a narrator guiding you through.
4. Audiobooks Foster Connection with the Story
There’s something uniquely intimate about listening to someone tell a story. When you’re listening, the storyteller’s voice is right in your ears, creating a sense of connection. This can be especially powerful with memoirs, where the author often narrates, letting listeners experience their story as though directly from them. It turns a passive experience into a deeply personal one.
5. They Enhance Literacy and Vocabulary
For kids and language learners, audiobooks are incredible tools for literacy development. They reinforce vocabulary, pronunciation, and fluency by letting listeners hear words in context, which can be more effective for comprehension than silent reading alone. Audiobooks also help develop listening skills and attention, which are critical literacy components.
FROM A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE:
Criticism of audiobooks often revolves around questions of engagement, authenticity, and perceived value relative to traditional reading. Here are some of the main critiques:
Engagement and Retention: Some argue that reading text promotes deeper cognitive engagement, leading to better retention and comprehension of information. Research varies on this, but some studies suggest that while both formats engage the brain, certain people may retain information better when reading visually rather than through listening.
Authenticity of Experience: For purists, audiobooks might seem to dilute the "authentic" reading experience, with some believing that the act of visual reading is inherently more personal or immersive. However, this criticism largely overlooks the unique immersion and expressiveness a skilled narrator can bring to an audiobook.
Format Challenges: Unlike print or e-books, navigating audiobooks can be less intuitive, particularly when going back to review specific parts. Flipping through pages to revisit content is easier in physical books, while audiobooks require rewinding or searching for timestamps, which can be cumbersome.
Narration Influence: A common critique is that the narrator’s voice, tone, and style can alter the story's impact. A narrator’s interpretation might unintentionally shape the listener’s understanding or emotions, which can feel limiting to those who prefer imagining voices and intonations themselves.
Cost: Audiobooks can be more expensive than their print counterparts due to the additional costs of narration and production, which can make them less accessible for some. This financial barrier often brings up issues of equity, as audiobooks can be inaccessible to those who may benefit most from them.
Perception as “Cheating”: There’s a lingering stigma around audiobooks, especially in academic or literary circles, where some people still consider them an “easier” or “lesser” way to consume content. Critics sometimes view listening as passive compared to reading, although this stance ignores the unique cognitive skills involved in auditory learning and comprehension.
Many criticisms come down to personal preference and the individual’s relationship with books. For each critique, though, there are many who argue that audiobooks are simply another tool in the reader's toolkit, one that broadens the possibilities for engaging with literature.
FROM AN INTERSECTIONALITY PERSPECTIVE:
Criticisms of audiobooks intersect with issues around accessibility, socioeconomic status, race, and education, making this topic layered and complex. Here’s how intersectionality plays a role in audiobook criticisms:
Ableism and Accessibility: Audiobooks are a crucial format for people with disabilities, such as visual impairments, dyslexia, ADHD, and other conditions that make print reading challenging. Criticisms that devalue audiobooks implicitly disregard the fact that for many, audiobooks are a primary or preferred way to access information and stories. By ignoring or downplaying this, audiobook criticism can perpetuate ableist assumptions that privilege one mode of reading over another.
Class and Economic Accessibility: Audiobooks can be costly compared to print books, especially because of the production resources involved in narration. Critics who champion physical books exclusively may overlook how many people, particularly those in lower-income brackets or working multiple jobs, use audiobooks to fit reading into busy, multitasking lives. Audiobooks allow people to "read" while commuting, working, or managing other responsibilities—things that might be taken for granted by those with more flexible schedules or fewer obligations.
Cultural and Linguistic Biases: Many people from immigrant or multilingual backgrounds have grown up with oral storytelling traditions, where listening, rather than reading, is the primary way stories are shared. Criticism of audiobooks can carry implicit biases that elevate Eurocentric and print-centric forms of literacy. Audiobooks offer an alternative that resonates with cultures for whom oral storytelling is a significant cultural component, making literature more relatable and accessible.
Education and Literacy Bias: In educational contexts, audiobooks can be critical for students who struggle with reading comprehension due to language barriers or learning differences. When audiobooks are undervalued, it creates a barrier for people who rely on them to succeed academically. This bias reinforces classist and ableist notions that may imply a single "correct" way to read, discounting the varied needs and learning styles of students from diverse backgrounds.
Gender and Care Work: Women, who are statistically more likely to engage in unpaid care work, such as childcare or eldercare, may turn to audiobooks as a flexible way to incorporate reading into their routines. Criticizing audiobooks without recognizing these dynamics can reflect gender biases that undervalue the ways people, particularly women, adapt reading to fit into caregiving and household responsibilities.
Geographic and Technological Accessibility: In rural or under-resourced areas, libraries may offer more options for audiobook lending through digital platforms than for print books. Criticizing audiobooks may overlook the importance of this access point for people who may not live near bookstores or fully stocked libraries, especially in marginalized communities.
Racial and Linguistic Representation: Audiobook narrators often bring diverse voices to literature, allowing listeners to hear accents, dialects, and language rhythms that reflect their own backgrounds. This representation can be empowering for BIPOC listeners who may feel more connected to stories when narrated by voices from their communities. Criticism of audiobooks can inadvertently silence this representation, undermining the importance of voice and dialect diversity in the literary world.
Recognizing these intersections sheds light on why defending audiobooks as an inclusive medium matters. Audiobook access and acceptance can empower people across ability, socioeconomic status, race, gender, and educational backgrounds, and can be part of a broader movement for a more equitable literary landscape.
IN CONCLUSION:
Whether it's through the page or the speaker, engaging with books and stories is what truly matters. So let's celebrate all forms of reading. If you’re “reading” via audiobook, you’re still reading—and the story, the ideas, and the emotions are just as real. Audiobooks are a fantastic part of the literary world, deserving of respect, appreciation, and, above all, no slander!
If you are interested in supporting and lifting up BIPOC voices, join our FB group!
What are some of your favorite audiobooks and/or narrators?
Until next time...
Sharon
