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I’ve never gotten into audiobooks.
I’m not sure why that is. I’m not opposed to the medium, and I absolutely loved both reading and being read to as a kid. I vividly recall Little House in the Big Woods, the first novel in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, being read to us in elementary school, setting in motion my lifelong love of those books.
And so, I was interested in discourse I encountered on Bluesky debating whether or not listening to audiobooks “counts” as reading.
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My question for these people is… towards what? Are you currently in an I Love To Read Month challenge? Is there a big pizza party at stake?
Why does it matter if someone consumes a novel with their ears versus their eyes? Isn’t the net result the same?
This business of whether things “count” or not fascinates me because it tells you a lot about the weight someone has assigned something. I do wonder if the reason some people believe reading a book “counts” more than listening to one is because the former is perceived as being more difficult.
We see this play out in fitness culture all the time. Do our steps not “count” if they are not physically counted by a smartwatch? Does only hitting that arbitrary goal of 10,000 steps “count,” or does any number of steps “count”? I’ve seen and heard lower-intensity — or god forbid, fun — activities denigrated as not “counting” as exercise because they aren’t high-intensity interval training or lifting heavy.
I’m guilty of this kind of thinking too. I’ve declined to log 10-minute walks on my smartwatch because they are “too short to count” which, what? When I was a gym-goer in my 20s, I sneered at mobility classes as “just stretching.” Now, kissing 40, I really wish I had unrolled a mat and joined them.
But whether or not something “counts” depends entirely on you and your goals — no one else’s. Any exercise you engage in will count towards overall health and fitness. Every step you take counts towards a step goal. Reading or listening to books counts towards a goal to engage with more fiction, or learn something new, or, yes, to “read more.”
After all, any positive behaviour that moves you closer to a goal has got to count for something.
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