Are Audiobooks As Good As Reading?
I used to think of reading and listening as two distinctly different activities. A book was something I sat down and read, while an audiobook was something I listened to when my hands—or my attention—needed to be somewhere else. But the more audiobooks have become part of my own reading life, the less useful that distinction feels.
Like a lot of readers, I now move between print books, ebooks, and audiobooks depending on what the rest of my day looks like. There are times when I want nothing more than to sit down with a physical book, and there are other times when listening to audiobooks lets me fit a book into a part of my day when reading a print copy simply wouldn't be possible.
But that raises an interesting question: Are audiobooks as good as reading?
The debate around audiobooks vs reading tends to get surprisingly passionate. Some readers insist that listening isn't really reading. Others argue that the format doesn't matter as long as you're experiencing the book. And then there is the more practical question: Do we actually understand and remember as much when we listen?
Rather than answering based solely on my own preferences, I wanted to look at what the research actually says about comprehension, retention, listening, and reading. And, as is often the case, the evidence suggests that the answer is a little more nuanced than simply declaring one format better than the other.
Are Audiobooks As Good As Reading?
For most material, yes—audiobooks can be just as good as reading when it comes to comprehension.
One frequently cited 2016 study compared adults who read an ebook, listened to the same material as a digital audiobook, or did both simultaneously. Researchers found no statistically significant differences between the groups in either immediate comprehension or retention two weeks later.
An even broader 2022 meta-analysis examined 46 studies involving 4,687 participants and found that, overall, the difference between reading and listening comprehension was not statistically reliable.
So if you're listening to a novel on your commute instead of reading the print version on your couch, there isn't good evidence that you've somehow received a lesser version of the book.
But there are important qualifications.
The honest answer to audiobooks vs reading depends on what you're reading, how complicated it is, whether you need to remember specific details, how much control you have over the pace, and—perhaps most importantly—what else you're doing at the same time.
A straightforward novel listened to while taking a walk is very different from trying to absorb a complicated history book while simultaneously answering emails and making dinner.
The format matters somewhat. Your attention matters a lot.
What Does the Research Say About Audiobooks vs Reading?
The research is reassuring for audiobook lovers, but it doesn't tell us that listening and reading are identical experiences.
In the 2016 study mentioned above, participants encountered the same nonfiction material in three different ways: audiobook, e-text, or audiobook and text simultaneously. Researchers tested them immediately and again two weeks later. They found comparable comprehension and retention across all three groups. The researchers did, however, note an important limitation: the nonfiction passage was relatively narrative in style, meaning the findings might not translate perfectly to something like a dense textbook.
That distinction becomes particularly interesting when we look at the larger body of research.
The 2022 meta-analysis found little overall difference between listening and reading comprehension, but reading had an advantage under certain conditions. In particular, readers performed better when they could control their own pace and when tests required inferential or general comprehension rather than simply recalling literal information.
That makes intuitive sense to me. When I'm reading something complicated, I naturally slow down. I reread a sentence. I flip back a few pages. I pause over something I want to remember. Those tiny adjustments are so automatic that I barely notice I'm making them.
An audiobook keeps moving unless I actively stop it.
This is why complex material may be one area where print books have an advantage. It's not necessarily that our brains are incapable of understanding complicated ideas through audio. Reading simply gives us incredibly easy control over the speed at which information arrives.
Then there is multitasking.
This deserves special attention because one of the greatest advantages of audiobooks is also potentially one of their biggest weaknesses: they allow us to do something else at the same time.
Research on reading and multitasking has found that dividing attention can negatively affect comprehension, particularly when people have limited time to process what they're reading. While that research isn't exclusively about audiobooks, it reinforces an important point when thinking about listening: our attention is finite.
If you've ever listened to an audiobook while driving somewhere unfamiliar and suddenly realized you haven't heard a word of the last three minutes, you've experienced this firsthand.
So I wouldn't interpret the research as "audiobooks and books are exactly the same." Instead, I think the more useful takeaway is that both formats can produce strong comprehension, but the circumstances in which we use them matter.
The Benefits of Audiobooks
Research aside, audiobooks offer advantages that a print book simply can't—and those advantages are a big part of why they've become such an important part of my own reading experience.
Convenience and Multitasking
The obvious benefit of listening to audiobooks is that you don't need your hands or eyes to do it.
You can listen while walking, commuting, folding laundry, exercising, or doing countless other routine tasks. For many readers, that turns otherwise book-free portions of the day into reading time.
The important distinction is the type of multitasking you're doing. Folding laundry while listening to a novel requires very little mental effort. Writing an important email while listening to a complicated nonfiction book requires considerably more.
I save books that require close attention for quieter moments and use more accessible audiobooks when I know I'll be doing something else.
A Great Narrator Can Transform a Book
Audiobooks also introduce something print books can't: performance.
A talented narrator can give characters distinct voices, communicate humor that might otherwise be subtle, and add emotional weight to a scene. Memoirs narrated by their authors can feel especially intimate because you're literally hearing someone tell you their story.
I've found that certain books are actually more memorable to me in audio because the narrator becomes so intertwined with the story.
If you're looking for performances that really demonstrate what the format can do, I've put together a list of the best audiobook narrators worth seeking out.
Audiobooks Make Books More Accessible
Audio is also an essential format for many readers.
For people with visual impairments, dyslexia, physical disabilities, reading difficulties, or other accessibility needs, audiobooks can remove barriers that make traditional print reading difficult or impossible.
They're also useful for readers learning pronunciation or encountering unfamiliar names and places. Hearing the language spoken can add another dimension to the reading experience.
The 2022 meta-analysis on reading and listening specifically concluded that having both audio and written options is important for accessible instruction.
You May Read More Books
There are only so many hours in the day when most of us can physically sit down with a book.
Audiobooks create more opportunities.
A long drive can become several chapters. A morning walk becomes an hour with a novel. And a road trip can become a shared reading experience for everyone in the car. If you're traveling with kids, I've also rounded up some of the best family road trip audiobooks.
For me, this may be the strongest argument for audio. Audiobooks don't have to replace print books. They can expand the amount of time books have a place in our lives.
The Benefits of Reading a Physical Book
All of that said, I don't think audiobooks have made print books obsolete. Far from it. There are still reading situations where I strongly prefer having an actual book in front of me.
You Can Reread and Slow Down
A physical book makes changing your pace effortless.
You can stop at the bottom of a paragraph, reread a beautiful sentence, flip back to remember who a character is, or spend several minutes working through a complicated idea.
Technically, you can rewind an audiobook too. In practice, I find it more disruptive than simply moving my eyes back up the page.
That ability to regulate your own pace may help explain why research has found an advantage for reading in some comprehension tasks.
Print May Be Better for Complex Material
If I'm reading something dense because I genuinely need to understand and remember it, I still reach for text.
Think textbooks, academic writing, complicated nonfiction, or books filled with dates, names, theories, and arguments.
Print books make it easier to underline, annotate, compare passages, and move backward and forward through the material. You're creating a visual map of the information as you go.
The research doesn't suggest that you can't understand complex material through audio. Rather, reading's self-paced nature can provide an advantage when deeper or inferential comprehension is required.
Reading Can Create Fewer Distractions
This depends entirely on the person and environment, but sitting down specifically to read creates a natural boundary around the activity.
You're reading.
When listening to an audiobook, it's tempting to also check your phone, clean the kitchen, drive, work out, organize a closet, or do six other things at once. Some of those activities pair beautifully with audio. Others compete for the same mental resources. Sometimes the benefit of a physical book isn't the paper itself. It's that holding a book gives me permission to do only one thing for a while.
You Control the Pace
A narrator inevitably makes choices about speed, pauses, emphasis, and tone. Usually, that's part of the pleasure of an audiobook. But it also means someone else is partially shaping the rhythm of your reading experience. With print, the pace belongs completely to you.
I can fly through a suspense novel, linger over beautiful prose, or stop halfway through a paragraph because something made me think. There is something wonderfully personal about that.
Does Listening To Audiobooks Count As Reading?
Yes. Listening to audiobooks counts as reading. I understand why people debate this. Technically, your eyes aren't decoding printed words, so listening and visual reading aren't identical cognitive processes.
But when readers ask does listening count as reading, I don't think they're usually asking for a technical definition of visual word recognition. They're asking whether an audiobook somehow "counts less" than finishing the same book in print.
I don't think it does.
You're still following the plot. You're interpreting characters. You're processing language. You're making connections and predictions. You're reacting emotionally to what the author created. And research suggests that, under many circumstances, comprehension can be comparable between listening and reading.
There are differences between the formats, and pretending otherwise isn't necessary to validate audiobooks. For me, the better question isn't, "Did you technically read it?" It's, "Did you experience the book?" If the answer is yes, I'm putting it on the read shelf.
How To Get the Most Out of Audiobooks
If you love listening to audiobooks—or want to start—there are a few simple ways to make the experience better, particularly when comprehension and retention matter to you.
Listen With Intent
Not every audiobook needs your undivided attention, but it helps to recognize when one does.
I love audiobooks during walks, drives on familiar routes, and repetitive household tasks because those activities leave plenty of mental space for the story.
If I notice myself repeatedly wondering what just happened, that's usually a sign that either the book or the activity requires too much attention for the combination to work.
Avoid Heavy Multitasking With Complex Books
Audiobooks make multitasking possible. That doesn't mean every task is compatible with listening.
For a light novel, cooking dinner might be fine. For a nonfiction book packed with information you want to retain, it may not be. Research consistently reminds us that attention is limited, and multitasking can interfere with comprehension. If a book is especially complicated, give it the same attention you would give a print book.
Use Bookmarks
One of the biggest misconceptions about audiobooks is that you can't mark something you want to revisit. Most audiobook platforms allow you to create bookmarks, and I think more listeners should use them.
Bookmark a passage that makes you think, a quote you want to remember, or a section you didn't completely understand. It recreates some of the ability to revisit material that comes so naturally with print.
Experiment With Playback Speed
There is no prize for listening at the fastest possible speed.
Some books sound perfectly natural sped up slightly. Others—particularly those with beautiful prose, complicated ideas, or a narrator whose performance is part of the appeal—benefit from a slower pace. Adjust the playback speed until you find the point where you're comfortable and still absorbing the book. And don't be afraid to change it from one book to another.
Ultimately, I don't think the audiobooks vs reading debate needs a winner.
Research suggests that for many kinds of material, comprehension and retention can be remarkably similar whether we read or listen. Print may have an advantage when we're dealing with complex material or need to slow down and deeply process information, while audio offers convenience, accessibility, performance, and opportunities to fit far more books into everyday life.
I still love the ritual of sitting down with a physical book. I love turning pages, seeing how far I've read, and having the freedom to linger over a sentence for as long as I want. But I also love that listening to audiobooks lets books follow me into parts of my day where print can't. And perhaps that's the best thing about having so many formats available to us: we don't actually have to choose.
We just get more ways to read.
