Giving Up on Audiobooks, For Now

If there’s another way to consume knowledge while doing routine activities, count me in! Audiobooks seemed promising, almost like cheating at gaining knowledge, but they did not deliver.

I am a big podcast listener; by big, I mean that I listen to podcasts on average two times a day. Since I started listening to them at 1.5x speed, I’ve begun to consider myself a professional (insert Willem Dafoe’s “something of a scientist myself” meme here).

But audiobooks are a no-go for me. I just couldn’t get myself to finish one until recently when I managed to listen to Elon Musk’s biography by Walter Isaacson — and oh boy, did I loathe the process.

First of all, it felt like wasted time. I finished the book without any highlights or notes to show for it or to refer back to. There were dozens of passages that required more of my attention, but I let them slip away.

But the most significant downside was that it didn’t feel natural. It’s one thing to hear people speak in a podcast episode, even if they improvise over a script, but it’s entirely another to listen to someone narrating. To me, it brought back memories of less gifted teachers who would read the entire lecture, prompting my brain to tune out. Audiobooks have a similar effect on me.

I just don’t hear people around me narrating things, so I naturally filter out this type of communication.

A few days ago, I heard an interesting perspective on this topic in a Tim Ferriss podcast episode (I think it was the one with Morgan Housel). The discussion suggested that if a book covers a topic you want to learn about deeply, it’s best to read it. Otherwise, listening to an audiobook and catching glimpses of ideas while doing other tasks can be sufficient.

Therefore, there’s a high chance that I simply chose the wrong books for my audiobook experiences.