The magic of listening to words!

Today, technology has evolved so much that there are many ways to consume entertainment. In the case of books, you have the lifelong option of reading them, but did you know that you can also listen to a book? There are many audiobooks that you can discover.

Here we will tell you what this consists of and what are the main differences with the traditional method of interacting with books.

The rise of audiobooks

To begin with, it should be noted that audiobooks are at a time of extreme popularity. Recently, Spotify announced that it will offer its users the possibility of using audiobooks. Which will become its third commercial branch, behind songs and podcasts.

Now, what's happening in numbers? In 2021, the industry earned $1.6 billion in the United States, which is 25% more than the previous year. According to the Audio Publishers Association, this figure would mark the tenth consecutive year in which the industry has had growth of more than 10%. This shows that more and more people are interested in listening to a book.

This is further evidenced by the fact that more than twice as many hours of audiobooks were listened to during 2021 than in 2017, according to this same study. The same happens in the Spanish-speaking market, as it grew 137% in 2021, according to Bookwire's report. Here Audible, the Amazon brand that has 80% of audiobooks in Spanish, stands out.

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However, the audiobook format is not new. This format emerged in the 1930s, when the U.S. Congress legislated to promote audiobooks. The goal was to give blind people access to this material. So, thanks to cassettes, CDs and MP3s, this format began to become popular.

Today, it is still possible to listen to them that way. But also, streaming platforms and Internet sites allow anyone to listen to (and create) their own content. In other words, they can be both downloaded and listened to online.

What are the benefits of listening to a book?

As you can imagine, the possibility of listening to a book has many advantages over reading. Here are the main ones.

Saving time

Listening to a book saves time for listeners. The reason is very simple: the platforms where they are hosted usually have options to speed up the sound. Therefore, it is possible to discover stories in a faster way, without depending on your reading speed.

Incorporation of sound resources

Precisely, understanding what an audiobook is implies understanding that sound is a crucial element to know a story. After all, a voice will read the text. But, in addition, it is common for the reading to be accompanied by different sound effects, with the aim of providing the right atmosphere.

Narrator's voice: the attraction of listening to a book

The best audiobooks are those with a captivating narrator. Because, unlike written text, if you don't have a person who knows how to convey emotions and entertain you, it will be difficult for a story to engage you. Conversely, if the narrator is good, he or she could make any story the most interesting.

More dynamism

This is perfect for the younger generation. Younger children, raised in a world full of screens, might find sitting down to read boring. Instead, listening to a text or watching a video with a narrator can generate greater dynamism, bringing them closer to the world of books.

Listening to a book does not engage all the senses

This is an elementary point. When you read, you have to concentrate 100% on this task. Otherwise, you might not understand it. In contrast, if you opt for audiobooks, you can do other things, such as cooking or cleaning. This way, you leave the content in the background, because you might understand it anyway.

What are the differences between watching and listening to a book?

Humans have been telling stories by word of mouth for many years. Since the spoken word has always been used, the possibility of listening to a book does not sound so crazy. But what can be said from a scientific perspective?

The first intuition is that the two are not the same. However, it is worth noting that the differences may be smaller than we think. Basically, a distinction occurs in the level of concentration, since we seem to concentrate more by "reading with our eyes".

Even so, the studies do not yield definitive conclusions. For example, the results may vary according to the type of text, whether it is fiction or non-fiction. In turn, it will influence whether the text is difficult, whether the participants are young or adult, and even whether they have little or a lot of experience as readers.

In this sense, a study published in SAGE affirms that there are no noticeable differences between conventional reading and attentive listening to a text. In contrast, another study, also published on this website, conducted a comprehension test of non-fiction texts between two groups of students.

The result was that those who had chosen to read had retained more information than those who had chosen to listen to a book. However, it is true that, in a culture marked by digitalization, audiobooks can be a gateway to the world of reading, as opposed to traditional reading.

As you can see, there are differences between listening to a book and reading it. However, there are no hard and fast conclusions about which is better, as it depends on multiple variables. As usual, it boils down to trying it out and seeing the advantages and disadvantages - we invite you to do so and even create your own audiobooks!