Despite the growing popularity and convenience of audiobooks, this format remains a deliberately postponed pleasure for me.

No matter how many times I’ve tried listening to audiobooks, none of my attempts have been successful. It doesn’t matter how good the narrator is, how interesting the work they’re reading is — I very quickly lose the thread of the narrative and get lost in my own thoughts. I’ve tried to find situations in which audiobooks could “take root”: during walks, sports activities, trips on public transport, or household chores. But every time, I found that the book turned into background noise and got lost.

Some reflections on this state of affairs and observations about myself led me to the conclusion that, in general, I have trouble processing information aurally. I always prefer messaging in messengers or email to making phone calls. I always ask my colleagues to repeat a question in writing if it was mentioned during a meeting. But if we focus exclusively on books, I can identify three reasons that work for me:

First, a quick search for information on this topic showed that I most likely belong to the group of people with a visual type of perception. Such people remember and process information better when it is presented in textual or graphical form.

Second, reading is an intimate and meditative process for me, in which not only the information extracted from letters and words is important, but also the rhythm, the contact with the text, and the opportunity to think along with the author or argue with them. The audio format introduces a different rhythm, a different intonation, a different pace into this process — a third person who interferes with the silence and disrupts the internal dialogue with the book.

The third reason, which is somewhat related to the second one: audiobooks work on the push principle — they push information into us. Whereas text printed on paper or displayed on a screen works on the pull principle — we pull information out of it. The second principle allows you to work with a book at your usual speed and in your usual pace. It allows us the freedom to pause, go back, look ahead, skip parts, and reread certain sections. With audiobooks, this is at best not easy, and at worst, impossible.

For these three reasons, I have excluded audiobooks from my reading interests. I prefer paper books or, at the very least, electronic versions. Although I also have a strained relationship with the latter.