Why is somebody only considered to have truly read a book if they’ve read it with their eyes, on paper?
This is an argument that you’d think would have run its course by now, but apparently it has not. If you listen to a book, or read it on a device instead of a dead tree, you haven’t actually “read” it, people say. As if you hadn’t absorbed the precise same content, just in a more convenient, or more accessible, or more preferred way.
There is disablism in these arguments and there is classism, as well as a huge serving of intellectual snobbery. Ultimately, this perspective relies on gatekeeping, and ignores the fact that the value of a book is in its contents, not in the medium through which you consume it.
The story it tells is the same story; the information is conveys is the same information; the laughs it entices are the same laughs. For some people, it seems to really matter how the words get into your brain, but it’s the words that count, not how you absorb them.
So why do people say that you’re only properly reading if you’re reading it from a paper copy?
“Audiobooks are cheating”
This argument seems to rely on the idea that reading through visual means is more effort, and therefore more meaningful or more worthy.
But books are not – usually – meant to be an effortful feat. Sure, there are philosophers or Deep Thinkers ™ who would like to painfully exert their readers’ brains, but most authors just want their ideas, or their stories, or their perspectives, to be spread.
They want to engage readers, not test their patience.
A sense that listening to a story is more passive, and therefore less serious, just doesn’t stand up. Once a person takes in an author’s words, they process them on all sorts of levels. Sometimes, we remember similar stories from our lives. Other times, we have to put a novel down until we stop crying about the death of a protagonist.
But always, we want to be creating mental imagery, thinking about meaning and emotions, and analysing the contents. That’s what makes reading meaningful, not whether we use our eyes or our ears, nor the material we are holding in our hands.
Plus, for many people with visual impairment, dyslexia, ADHD, brain injuries, or a range of other impairments, classing visual consumption of a text as the only true way to consume a book is exclusionary and dismissive.
Who’s to say the blind person listening to an RNIB recording gets less from the experience than a non-disabled person who got a copy of a book from Waterstones? Who’s to say the person who simply can’t focus on something in front of their eyes but can pay attention when listening is a lesser reader than a neurotypical person who’s never had trouble concentrating?
And, as many people have to travel to work, or work manually and have no time to access paper books, audiobooks make the same novels and non-fiction available in a way that we should consider miraculous.
“Ebooks aren’t ‘real’ books”
There is a lot to be said for the nostalgic experience of flicking through a paper book. Feeling its weight, smelling its pages, choosing the right bookmark. It can feel romantic, or authentic; like a comfortable, happy place.
But there is also a lot to be said for being able to read in ways that doesn’t wreck your hands if they are in pain, which is why I use a Kindle for most of my reading. I hate the Bezos Industrial Complex, but it has made the most accessible option for my situation. Others make similar decisions for a whole range of reasons – who am I to question how real their reading is?
Few printed books are available in large print format, for instance. Why should a visually impaired person not entitled to the same range of texts as I am? Many out-of-copyright books are available in free and legal formats online and can be easily transferred to most e-readers. If somebody’s local library has been closed and cash is short, are we really going to begrudge them something to read?
I also love, as a person who’s forever reading at least two or three books at any given time, that my Kindle contains dozens of books. There’s always one to suit my mood.
We hear a lot of talk about screen time, and I’m not the person to speak authoritatively about that on either side of the debate. But there’s screen time and there’s screen time, and I can qualitatively tell the difference between an hour scrolling Instagram and an hour reading Nikita Gill or Robin Wall Kimmerer.
What makes a book good, real, authentic or worthwhile comes from the contents of the book and what my brain does with that. It’s the ideas, the wording, or the beauty that captures my imagination or influences my behaviour, not whether I read it on my Kindle or in a library book.
The media we read from has changed many times over history, and will change many more times still. I don’t argue that those who aren’t still getting their ideas from papyrus are half-arsing their efforts; so if I read on a Kindle, or listen to an audiobook, the same applies.
What makes reading “real”?
The ways we choose to read a book can depend on a lot of criteria: accessibility, affordability, availability, storage space, and time all impact the choices we make.
The point of reading is to learn, or to enrich ourselves, or simply to gain some enjoyment.
If listening to an audiobook while I’m driving, or using an e-reader instead of causing myself pain, means I get the opportunity to learn, enrich myself, or enjoy something, why is this considered by so many – still! – to be lesser?
Why, when a traditional book reader gets exactly the same story, is she thought to have done it “properly”?
If you want to read a book, read a book. If you want that to be on paper, go for it! If it is more convenient to listen, go for it! If your Kobo means you don’t have to lug 24 novels with you on holiday, go for it!
The idea that one of these options is morally or intellectually superior is based in snobbery, and it misses the point of what books are actually for.
The reason or the motive doesn’t matter. You don’t need to justify the way you choose to read.
If you want to read, read. Please, please read, and don’t let other people’s ideas of the way you should do that make a difference to how legitimately you think you are doing so.
The point is the ideas, the words, or the story. The medium is, by far, the least important factor.
Images: Kai Pro, Melike B, iddea photo