this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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I originally thought I would like them, but I apparently don't multitask very well. I lose the thread if I'm doing something else and I also apparently read much faster than people speak and I can't as easily skip passages like I can when I'm reading. Because of this, it just seems strange to sit still and listen to a book for hours straight. It should probably also feel weird to just sit still and read a book for hours at a time, but I guess I've normalized that.
I've never heard of anyone actually just sitting on the couch and listening to an audiobook while doing nothing else. It's usually while doing some other mundane activity that doesn't require much thought. Or at least something that doesn't require the language part of your brain so you can do them at the same time. I can't work and listen because my work involves thinking about words.
But at all times I am in the middle of a paper book and an audiobook. I listen to the audiobook when driving, doing chores and am in the shower. All other times I will read the paper book I am in the middle of.
Yeah, I know it's strange, but I have a hard time, say, cleaning the dishes and listening to something I want to concentrate on (i.e. I don't want to miss story beats because I got caught up in what I was doing). I usually lose the thread if I don't listen to it, or I bounce off of listening to it because it goes so slow. Even chores that require no language processing. I would end up cleaning the same dish again or something.
I think it might be related to my having aphantasia. I can't visualize anything, and I don't have an audible internal monologue so I'm not really used to multitasking what I'm seeing internally with what's going on in the outside world. If I'm watching an youtube video, I'm just sitting there watching it and not doing something else on the computer at the same time. I've watched podcast videos where there's just a static picture, and I'm still just sitting there staring at the screen listening to it.
I'm weird, I guess.
I find it really fascinating how different peoples minds can work. I've heard the internal monologue aspect come up a lot when discussing reading in general. There is no instruction manual when learning how to think as a baby so I suppose it isn't surprising that there are a lot of variations.