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Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#11

Post by vlaak »

I've listened to a lot of audiobooks over the last several years. I've switched probably 80% of my "reading" time to audio so I can get more content (while driving, cleaning, laundry, etc.).

In my case, retention is much lower for listened content compared to read content. So much so that I now only listen to things which I consider entertainment. For anything technical, or that I'd want to retain longer than a few weeks I read with an actual book.

I hesitate to speak for everyone on this, but I will say that a few friends I've spoken to about it have said they see the same lesser retention in audio content.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#12

Post by gordon_freeman »

vlaak wrote: post #11

I've listened to a lot of audiobooks over the last several years. I've switched probably 80% of my "reading" time to audio so I can get more content (while driving, cleaning, laundry, etc.). In my case, retention is much lower for listened content compared to read content. So much so that I now only listen to things which I consider entertainment. For anything technical, or that I'd want to retain longer than a few w…

One thing I've noticed is that when I'm listening to Audiobook and doing multitasking (working on computer, driving, etc.), the retention rate is usually very low. But if I am solely relaxing and listening to an Audiobook while not doing anything else then the retention rate tends to be much higher. The good thing with Audiobook is that the narrator can make the experience alive by his/her style of narrating which we would not get with merely reading the book.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#13

Post by MartynX »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #10

A suggestion for Audiobook: I'd really like to have a start/stop button on UI by pressing which the app automatically captures a note in text format and stores in the cloud under the same Audiobook. I hate to always take manual notes and in process miss out what narrator said during the time I was taking the notes.

Audible has this feature, works exactly as you describe it.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#14

Post by ams6110 »

What about reading along with an audio book?

The only way one of my kids gets through some of the "great literature" he has to read in high school is to listen to it, which I've conceded but on the condition that he follow along in reading the book.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#15

Post by todd8 »

I’ve heard the answer to this question somewhere, but now I can’t remember what I heard. :)

More seriously, some of this, to me, depends on what I’m listening to or reading. Fiction or easy non-fiction audio books do allow some degree of multitasking. However this doesn’t apply to 90% of my reading. Technical material is much faster for me to actually read.

For example, I saw an interesting paper recently[1]. It’s results are important and I’m happy to have come across them, but there is no way I could have absorbed it on an audio format without taking much more time.

I read technical material like this faster because I can skim over the things I already know (like why the result is interesting, applications of the idea, complex proof steps, math background material, etc) and I can slow down for the key results I want to remember. I can go back and re-read sentences that don’t make sense to me or where I’m confused.

For technical books there is so much that I don’t usually have to learn again, I can just skip to the new stuff.

[1] The Power of Two Choices in Randomized Load Balancing, https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=504343

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#16

Post by bosie »

MartynX wrote: post #13
gordon_freeman wrote: post #10

A suggestion for Audiobook: I'd really like to have a start/stop button on UI by pressing which the app automatically captures a note in text format and stores in the cloud under the same Audiobook. I hate to always take manual notes and in process miss out what narrator said during the time I was taking the notes.

Audible has this feature, works exactly as you describe it.

When did they add the sync feature? I asked the audible support about sync two months ago and they said that the notes are only stored on the device you are using. Indeed i couldn't see it anywhere else and when i switched phones the notes wouldn't sync to the new audible installation.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#17

Post by phhlho »

vlaak wrote: post #11

I've listened to a lot of audiobooks over the last several years. I've switched probably 80% of my "reading" time to audio so I can get more content (while driving, cleaning, laundry, etc.). In my case, retention is much lower for listened content compared to read content. So much so that I now only listen to things which I consider entertainment. For anything technical, or that I'd want to retain longer than a few w…

100% agreed - it even seems to happen to me if the text is older or takes a little more time to process. I listened to an audio copy of Candide while commuting by car and when I reached the end I remember being struck by the fact that I had no idea what had happened!

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#18

Post by maxxxxx »

vlaak wrote: post #11

I've listened to a lot of audiobooks over the last several years. I've switched probably 80% of my "reading" time to audio so I can get more content (while driving, cleaning, laundry, etc.). In my case, retention is much lower for listened content compared to read content. So much so that I now only listen to things which I consider entertainment. For anything technical, or that I'd want to retain longer than a few w…

For me the reader makes a huge difference. I have listened to some audiobooks where I really liked the reader and retention was very good. But for a lot of them I agree that reading is better. Even more so for technical stuff where you often stop or even go back.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any studies about book reading retention rates vs. audiobooks?

#19

Post by tristanho »

Audiobooks certainly feel like they have much worse retention. To solve this, whenever I listen to an audiobook now, I'll both buy it on Audible and on Kindle. Then, whenever I hear something particularly compelling/important, I quickly hop into the Kindle app on my phone and highlight it. If a book has whispersync[0] enabled this is especially easy.

This, combined with having a workflow for consistently reviewing my highlights[1] has improved my (admittedly self-reported) retention significantly. There's plenty of science that supports how effective spaced repetition is for retention.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000827...

[1] https://readwise.io -- disclaimer: I built this, but I genuinely think it's helpful here.

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