Listening is not Reading

Both are good, but the latter is best.

RE'ADING, ppr.

1. Pronouncing or perusing written or printed words or characters of a book or writing.

2. Discovering by marks; understanding.

-Noah Webster (1828)

On several occasions now I have informally addressed this issue in conversation and I have often been met with staunch resistance and even, in some cases, resentment and anger. I have absolutely no wish to upset anyone, that is certainly not my goal, but I do think this matter is important enough that addressing it is worth the risk of upsetting some people. So it is with a sincere good will, and a desire to persuade others towards what I believe to be the truth, that I am writing to address the distinction between reading and listening to a book and the relative value of each. My thesis is this: Reading is the superlative form of acquiring and processing information.

Allow me to start by stating some immediate concessions. Please attend to them for they are sincere.

1. Listening is a meaningful and valuable way to receive information or take in a book. It is by no means to be demeaned or devalued and in certain specific situations it is to be commended as the better form of receiving information.

2. I acknowledge and respect the fact that auditory reception of information is more natural and primal and has served humanity very well in many ways since the very beginning and continues to serve us well in many ways.

3. I am very thankful for platforms like Audible and LibriVox and I make use of them personally on an almost daily basis.

4. If a person is unable to read, either because of illiteracy or because of other demands on one’s time and attention, but he or she makes use of audiobooks and podcasts so as to take in information rather than simply be altogether ignorant of literature and matters of importance then they are to be commended and not condemned.

Perhaps I should say other things in favor of auditory learning, but hopefully this is enough to show that I am in no way against it and, indeed, I value it. This being said, I want to address what I believe to be an error that seems to be growing up in the midst of our present culture that I think needs to be challenged and pushed back against on at least two fronts. One front is about semantics (by which I mean the meaning of words) and the other is about value.

As to the semantic issue, let’s consider the following statement. “I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” What image does this statement bring to your mind? What do you presume that I mean when I write this? Do you imagine me with a book in my hand or with AirPods in my ears? The truth is, I don’t know what you imagine, to be honest, because it has become clear to me as of late that many people are comfortable with the idea of “listening” to a book and calling it “reading.” This confounds me because listening simply isn’t reading.

Allow me to give a parallel example. A man is on the witness stand in a court of law, being cross examined by the prosecuting attorney, when the attorney asks him, “Did you ever have any communication between yourself and the defendant?” The man in the witness box replies, “Oh, yes. I have often written to him.” The attorney is delighted to hear it, “Can you produce any of these letters for the court?” The man replies, “I’m sorry, what letters?” A bit perplexed, the attorney replies, “You said you have written to the defendant.” “Yes.” “Can you show the court what you have written? Produce a copy of it?” “Well, I can write to you what I said, just like I am writing to you right now.”

In other words, imagine if we referred to talking as writing. That’s rather confusing, isn’t it? Speaking and writing are clearly two separate kinds of communication. In the very same way, reading and listening are simply not the same thing. I hear someone speaking to me as I listen to them, but I read that which someone has written to me. To conflate these terms is confusing and, I think, indicative of a cultural drift towards illiteracy.

The fact of the matter, which should be obvious to all, is that our culture is moving away from the written word. If the advent of social media with short form posts has reduced our attention spans then the advent of YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat, and other such visual media has done much to destroy them altogether. Many in our society cannot bear the idea of sitting down to read a book, much less can they conceive of finding pleasure in doing so. Many people who are technically able to read are basically illiterate because to do anything more than read a sentence or two is extremely mentally taxing to them. The overuse of visual and auditory media has rendered reading unpalatable to far too many.

In a very real sense we are regressing as a civilization in regard to communication and imagination. In the history of the world we have moved from pictographic forms of communication, like hieroglyphics, to a much more refined communication in the written word. Now, however, we are descending back to hieroglyphs…but these new hieroglyphs move and speak. In the ancient and medieval world many were illiterate because they never learned how to read, but now many are illiterate because they simply refuse to read. The attempt to refer to listening as reading is an attempt to take what implicitly everyone knows to be the inferior form (listening) and make it equal with the superior form (reading). Throughout history literacy has always been associated with the social elite and illiteracy associated with the lower class or common person. I don’t say this as an insult, it just is the case. As our society is moving away from literacy this has not really changed. Those who cannot read, or will not read, still would like to have the aura of being a reader though. Why? Because being literate is associated with being upper class, being wise, and having power. Indeed, reading is a power in itself and it confers a kind of power.

So this is the first front upon which I am pushing back. Reading and listening are different modes of gaining information. By playing games with words like this we are actually further enabling a cultural regression away from that which has always empowered people. We ought not to be letting go of actual reading. To the extent we do let go of it in our society we will be reinvigorating a disparity between those who rule and the masses. Ignoring this truth (that reading is a kind of power and the elite of society will always be those who are truly literate) simply allows society to happily continue regressing away from the written word. Allowing people to call “listening” to a book or podcast “reading” will simply mask this descent towards true illiteracy, but only for a time.

The second front I wish to address is the relative value of reading in comparison to listening. When communication is well presented and the receiver is fully attentive to it, all things otherwise being equal, reading information is superior to listening to it for the sake of learning. There are, of course, exceptions where speaking and listening are more to be preferred as forms of communication. I do not suggest you should stop talking to your spouse or your parents or siblings or boss and take to only giving them written memos. I do not deny that eye-contact and hearing the intonation of a person’s voice is very valuable and that there are certain things which can only be expressed visually or by tone. I am also not saying that the written word has no shortcomings and that it is in every way superior to audio or visual communications. I am saying that if you can either listen to a book or read it, reading is better for the sake of truly understanding and retaining its message.

Reading a text is always and necessarily active whereas listening tends to be more passive. To read is to be wholly present. When one reads one does not merely look at a page, rather he acquires and scrapes the words off of the page and into his mind by directed attention and focus. Granted, one can attend to listening to someone to a greater or lesser degree as well, but there is really no doubt that listening is less demanding than reading. It is because listening is less demanding than reading that is so oft preferred today. For the same reason that gyms are avoided and restaurants are pursued, reading is avoided and listening is sought. The gratification of working out comes only after the hard work is sustained over time, the pleasure of eating is immediate. Nevertheless, it is almost universally acknowledged that gratification gained by hard work is longer appreciated and has more benefits than that which is acquired with ease.

Reading demands deeper and more careful reflection. One can take the information at whatever pace he likes, pause after a sentence, reflect upon it and ponder its meaning, write a note in the margin of the text, reread it and then continue. When listening to a speaker, and attending carefully to his words, one cannot pause him. Indeed we often get lost in an interesting point he makes and then end up missing other important things he is saying. If we take notes we are liable to the same chance of missing information and those notes are always incomplete in relation to what was actually said. Even in the case of an audio recording of a book or lecture, most of the time people do not pause the recording to reflect or write a note and very frequently they are doing other things while listening and their attention is altogether divided. Reading demands more and it therefore gives more.

Despite the great value of the spoken word, and indeed it is very great and sometimes greater (depending upon the occasion) than the written word, generally the written word is preferable for the sake of learning. Of course people will offer many counterexamples. Didn’t Jesus speak to the crowds? Don’t we attend church every Sunday to hear a sermon preached? Can’t an orator move an audience with greater power in person with a great speech which would not be nearly as forceful if it were simply read? Yes, yes, and yes. I do not deny any of this. Listening to the spoken word remains incredibly valuable and is in some cases irreplaceable. This, however, does not negate my point that all things being equal, reading is better than listening when it comes to comprehension and understanding.

“God spoke the universe into being!” …and you know that because he moved Moses by his Spirit to record it in a book. “Jesus preached to the crowds!” …and you know what he said because God inspired the Evangelists to record it in written form. “Socrates argued that the dialectic is better than reading!” …and you know this because Plato wrote it down. “Your pastor preaches powerful and moving sermons!” …motivated by what it says in the good book. “Oral tradition and memorization is incredible and can be a reliable form of transmission!” …and yet you only know for sure if what we have today is the same as what they had then by comparing manuscripts.

Some will say that speaking and listening are more natural to human persons than reading and writing. In one sense, I agree. We acquire speech, and the capacity to understand it, far more naturally. We learn it while we are very young simply by being around it. Almost everyone gains speech and the ability to understand it without even thinking about it. Even so, as image bearers we are little makers like the Great Maker. As God created speech itself, so did man make tokens and symbols in order to record speech. The placing of language into written form by the use of symbols and combinations of symbols, with increasing complexity of structure, until we reached well ordered written languages is part of the glory of humans being sub-creators. The written word (and reading thereof) is, in some ways, the superlative form of human communication because it is built upon the natural foundation given by God to make something more. Just as man has made cathedrals with his natural powers of picking up stones, so man has constructed upon the natural powers of language to make the written word. God has, in fact, so far condescended to man that he actually inspired man to record his own eternal word within human scripts.

As Christians, in particular, we are people of a book. Our whole faith is tied to that which is written. God deemed it good to preserve his word, not by oral tradition, not by statues and paintings, certainly not by television or Youtube, but in a book. And books are first and foremost meant to be read. If speaking and listening were sufficient or superior means of communication then God would surely have preferred those, but he did not.

Now it is quite obvious that certain things were meant to be seen, others heard, and some seen and heard together. Music can also be read and a practiced musician can hear the tune in his head while he reads the notes, but he would be right in telling you that this is not the way in which music is meant to be experienced. You are supposed to listen to it first and foremost. The same goes for a play. You can read a Shakespeare play, and there is much to commend in reading a Shakespeare play, but he designed those works as scripts to be performed on a stage, both seen and heard together. To read it is good, but it’s not its ideal form. In the same way, however, a novel or a theological or philosophical treatise or a work of historiography is clearly written to be read. You can benefit from listening to someone else read it, but not as much. You can benefit from watching an adaptation of a book into film or theater, but not as much.

Musical performances, picture galleries, live theater, sermons, lectures, reading books, they all have their place and they are all wonderful! But when it comes simply to learning, understanding, and retaining information or taking in a story for all it’s worth, nothing beats reading.

I am quite certain that many people will think I am being pedantic or even arrogant for arguing as I have, but I can’t help that. I think this issue matters and it matters more than many people think. We must consider the harm being done to civilization if we progressively (indeed regressively) let go of actually reading texts in favor of other mediums.

What I have here addressed very briefly and very informally I have also addressed in more detail, and with a more scholarly tone, in chapter ten of my doctoral dissertation. The whole dissertation on the relationship of Storytelling and Virtue is available to Paid Subscribers on the Directory of Resources page. Here I will give everyone free access to Chapter Ten on The Mediums and Modes of Storytelling in case you might like to further reflect on the merits of various mediums of storytelling and the primacy of the written word.