Does listening to an audiobook count as reading?

It is one of those questions that sounds like a quiz and is really a small worry about whether you are doing it properly. So plainly: does listening to a book count as reading it? For the part most people care about, understanding and remembering what the book said, the evidence says mostly yes. For some things, print still has an edge, and it is worth knowing which.

Is reading or listening to a book better for comprehension?

46 studies say neither, on average. The largest review we know of is a 2022 meta-analysis in the Review of Educational Research that pooled 46 studies and 4,687 participants of different ages. The overall difference between reading comprehension and listening comprehension was not reliably different from zero.^[1]

The caveat is in the detail. Reading came out ahead when readers could go at their own pace, rather than having the text fed to them at a fixed speed. It also came out ahead on inferential questions, the ones that ask you to work something out rather than recall a fact. On literal recall there was essentially no difference.^[1] That makes sense. A page waits for you. An audiobook keeps going.

A smaller, frequently quoted study points the same way. In 2016, 91 participants were randomly given the same non-fiction material as an audiobook, as an e-text, or as both at once. They took the same written test straight afterwards and again two weeks later. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups at either point.^[2] One study of 91 people settles nothing on its own, but it sits comfortably with the larger picture.

Is reading better for your brain than audiobooks?

No, not in the sense the question usually means. In a 2019 study in the Journal of Neuroscience, nine participants had their brains scanned while they listened to, and separately read, more than two hours of the same narrative stories. The researchers mapped how meaning was represented across the cortex in each case. Their conclusion was that the semantic representations evoked by listening and by reading are almost identical.^[3]

Nine people is a small sample, so hold it lightly. But it fits with what you would expect from how language works: once the words are decoded, whether by eye or by ear, the brain is building the same kind of meaning. Your eyes and ears are different doors into the same room.

What differs is the route in. Reading print involves decoding letters, which is its own skill and one that needs practice, particularly for children. Listening skips that step and adds something print does not have: the narrator’s voice, pacing and tone, which can help or, if you dislike the narrator, hinder.

Why do I remember less from audiobooks?

One likely reason: your attention slipped and you did not notice. In a 2013 study, people encountered passages in three ways: reading aloud, reading silently, and listening to someone else read. Throughout, they were interrupted with probes asking whether their mind had wandered. Listening produced the most mind wandering, the poorest memory for the material and the least interest in it. Reading aloud produced the least.^[4]

This matches most people’s experience. When you drift off on a page, your eyes stall and you notice. When you drift off during an audiobook, the narrator carries on regardless, and you surface three minutes later with no idea how the character got to Lisbon. It is not that listening is worse. It is that listening is easier to do half-heartedly, especially while washing up, driving or scrolling.

So the fair answer to “is reading or listening better?” is that it depends less on the format than on what else you are doing. An audiobook with your full attention and a page with half of it are not a fair comparison, in either direction. Our piece on why you can’t finish books anymore goes further into what fragmented attention does to long-form reading.

Does listening to a book count as reading it?

Yes, for most purposes. If you listened to the whole thing, followed it and could talk about it over dinner, you have read it in every sense that matters socially. The debate is mostly about status, not about minds.

Where it genuinely does not count as the same thing:

• Learning to read. For children, decoding print is a skill that only practice with print builds. Audiobooks are a lovely companion to that, and a way into stories above their reading level, but not a substitute.
• Dense or technical material. Anything you would want to reread, underline or pause over tends to suit the page, because the 2022 review found print’s advantage lies in self-pacing and inference.^[1]
• Studying. If you will be tested on it, the ability to go back is worth a lot.

And where listening is arguably better: long walks, commutes, tired eyes, poetry and plays written to be heard, and any book you would otherwise never get to at all.

Is reading articles as good as reading books?

No, not quite, but for a different reason. The reading-versus-listening research is about format. Articles versus books is about length. Short pieces are fine for information, but a book asks you to hold a thread for hours, and that sustained attention is the thing many of us feel slipping. Plenty of short reading in a day can leave you well informed and still out of practice at the long kind. If that sounds familiar, our guide on how to read more books is a gentle place to start.

Are audiobooks good for you?

Yes, for most people. There is no good evidence that they are bad for you, and they bring books into times and lives that print cannot reach: commutes, chores, tired eyes. For understanding, the 2022 meta-analysis found no reliable overall difference between listening and reading.^[1] The National Literacy Trust’s 2026 survey of 110,114 UK children and young people aged 8 to 18 found 47.3% listened to audiobooks, podcasts or both, and among audiobook listeners, 36.6% said listening had got them interested in reading.^[5]

The caveats: listening is the format in which minds wander most,^[4] and children still need practice with print to learn to read. We also found no good evidence that audiobooks help you sleep, so treat that as personal preference rather than a benefit.

How do you get the most from an audiobook?

Five small habits help:

• Give it some of your attention, not the leftovers. A walk is better than a busy supermarket. Doing nothing at all is better still, now and then.
• Slow the speed down, not up. Faster playback means less room for the inferential thinking where print had its edge.
• Use the rewind button without guilt. It is the audio equivalent of rereading a paragraph, which readers do constantly.
• Mix formats. Plenty of people listen to a book and read the tricky chapters on paper.
• Talk or write about it afterwards. Retelling is one of the best memory aids there is, whichever way the story reached you.

We think the most useful thing to count is not pages or minutes but whether you were actually there for the book. If you want somewhere to keep track of what you read and heard, and what stayed with you, The Reading Journal has room for both.