I see this all the time on social media, that audiobooks don’t count as reading. It’s listening. Aside from how heavily pedantic that argument is (seriously, does it really matter that much?) it’s ableist. Let’s unpack this, shall we? 

First of all, how do you think blind people read? Not all blind people read braille, after all, and not all books are available in braille. But do you know what is available? Audiobooks. Are you really going to tell a blind person that audiobooks don’t count as reading? I am aware people do, but really think about what you stand to gain here. What is the point of splitting hairs? It doesn’t matter, and it makes you look like a gatekeeping jerk to tell a blind person that audiobooks don’t count as reading, but somehow braille does. After all, if we’re being pedantic, reading through touch isn’t the same as reading using vision either. 

Second, not everyone can focus on written words. Maybe they had ADHD. Maybe they have dyslexia. Maybe it just doesn’t vibe with them. Audiobooks, on the other hand, use a different part of the brain to process, and people can enjoy them when slogging through a book is too difficult. They’re still enjoying books, after all. The format doesn’t matter as much as people sometimes think. Once again, it’s a pedantic argument that is keeping people from reading books they’d otherwise enjoy because someone in their lives likes to pull the “well, actually,” style of argument and insist that listening and reading are two different things.  

Beyond those two points, how do you think people read before books were invented? Humans have been telling stories for as long as we’ve existed, in the form of oral storytelling traditions. I know the Philippines has a rich oral storytelling tradition dating back forever, the same as pretty much every single other culture there is. In fact, the Legend of King Arthur started as an oral story and wasn’t written down until much later. Seems strange to pick visual reading as the superior format when oral storytelling traditions predate written stories. 

With that being said, does it really matter how people enjoy stories? Why is it necessary to gatekeep something like this? Being able to read written works doesn’t automatically make you better, more intelligent, or anything like that. So why bother? You’re hurting people by saying things like this. You’re preventing people who would otherwise be readers by gatekeeping what it means to read. And what do you get out of that? Nothing. You might feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t make you a better person. Let people read the way they want to read. Let them enjoy things the way you do. Just let people be. Because while you think everyone around you agrees with you, chances are at least one person isn’t reading because they hear you saying audiobooks don’t count. And it’s still a story in end, which is the part that really matters.