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Comment by Silverback_VII | Hacker News Reader

I have switched almost completely to audiobooks. I believe it's more natural for humans to listen as it removes a layer of useless computation(deciphering symbols and converting into sound or whatever).

Reading is now limited to stuff on the internet and for incremental reading software.

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You can process those symbols much faster than the audio.

I'm not sure honestly. Often you can speed up audio content even while doing other stuff. And if you focus solely on the audiobook and want to rush trough it, you can speed up even more.

I've found I can't do audiobooks at all. My mind wanders and I lose comprehension, and I can't really do it when I do other things as background noise because, again, no lasting comprehension for me .

But maybe it's a difference of why people read, and I see a lot of comments on multiple sides assuming that there's only one correct way to read and it's theirs.

it's just at the beginning... you will get better at it quickly and your comprehension will also increase.

Not really. I've been trying it regularly with podcasts for years and haven't gotten any better at being able to focus on it. I'm just better at achieving actual understanding through text.

Besides, I'd never try to listen to anything actually deep -- can you imagine listening to Nietzsche?

I can and have. The author makes it quite engaging compared to reading it in book form which I have also done.

But how much did you comprehend? Were you able to easily go back when you didn't understand something or re-listen to a specific part to make sure you understood it? It doesn't seem very conducive to a deep understanding of any topic, let alone deep understanding.

I for one can't imagine actually getting much out of a 'deeper' book via audio, even if I could sit and listen to them with the comprehension levels I get out of reading.

The tradeoff is that the audiobooks are agonizingly slow and unpleasant to listen to if you speed them up.

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