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Technology. Just that one word has become synonymous with our everyday lives and for many of us it’s exciting. Everything about our lives has become digital, from the way we interact with our friends and family to the way that we get our news and now even the way we read our books. But what about the word reading? That word, for many people, isn't super exciting. For me it used to not be exciting but it’s synonymous with my childhood. 

Throughout my childhood I grew up with a mom who instilled in me the importance of reading books. Picture books, science books, fiction books and chapter books lined the shelves of my childhood bedroom. Every summer she’d take me and my sister to our local library and make us sign up for their summer reading programs. But one day all of that changed when my mom came home and told me about how she had just found out what Audible was. I sat there in disbelief because my mom, who always had a new book in her hand, was telling me she really liked listening to her books now. I began to wonder what this would mean for my summer reading or my new books for Christmas. I was so scared. Would she stop getting me books? Would she stop taking me to the library? Would I stop reading? 

Now I do understand the importance of Audible because it has made it easier to access texts that I couldn’t find in my library or didn’t know whether I wanted to spend the money on. I’ve used it before and tried to give it a chance but there was one thing that I noticed every single time I used it, I wasn’t actually reading. I couldn’t understand what was happening but I slowly found myself reading less and less actual books and listening to more and more audiobooks until one day I didn’t do either. 

The joy I felt when I would go to Barnes and Noble or the library quickly disappeared and I began viewing reading real books as a chore. In fact I even went two years without stepping foot into a library because I had a world of books at my fingertips. That’s when I really realized the danger of what Audible was doing in my life. I lost the love of reading because of something meant to encourage more reading. I know that sounds so odd because how could something meant to make reading easier and more accessible ruin it for me? 

Well, for me there were several reasons why. 

Why Audible Ruined Reading for me: 

The first reason reading was ruined for me by Audible was because of how easy and convenient it was. Now again I know that sounds like a weird contradiction because the best part of audiobooks is the convenience and ease of them. But for me I found myself not carving out time to spend with my books and I began doing other tasks as I listened to the book. I would clean my room or do laundry and listen to a book. I would walk around and listen to a book. I would drive and listen to a book. I began to lose the joy of sitting and taking 1-2 hours of my day to just get lost in a book. It became something where I’d sit there and think why would I carve 1-2 hours for a book when I can do everything on my to-do list and have someone do the reading for me. The convenience of a book whenever I wanted made those 1-2 hours feel like they weren’t being properly used. 

The second reason reading was ruined for me by Audible was because it made me lose appreciation for what physical books bring. A core memory for me growing up was being able to go to the library or to Barnes and Noble and pick out books and use my money or my library card. But when I discovered Audible, that joy of having such a tough choice about what book would come home with me disappeared because I had a library at my fingertips. I could bring home every book and choose whatever one I wanted. I forgot what it felt like to pick out a brand new book and be the first one to turn the pages. Physical books bring so much to the experience of reading because you see the sentences the way the author wants them or small details like how a paragraph is structured. Audiobooks took that from me. 

The third reason reading was ruined for me by Audible was because I simply couldn’t keep up with the speed of an app. Audible allowed me to read books faster than I ever would’ve been able to on my own. I could put a book on 2x speed and I could finish a chapter book in 3-4 hours. But that slowly became my crutch. I would get frustrated because as I was listening, I couldn’t read my books as fast as their narrator so I’d lose my place or entirely put the book down and just listen. But because of that it began to take too long to read on my own so I kept using Audible. It became a terrible cycle for me. This again ruined reading because I didn’t have the time to try and learn that skill of reading while the audiobook was playing. I felt almost as though I was less than so why should I try and keep up?  

The fourth reason reading was ruined for me by Audible was because of the narrator and how they made the story. I think everyone who reads has a way that they think the story should sound in their head. That was a major reason for my love of reading because I was giving life to the characters on my pages. But when someone else is reading it for me, the joy goes away. Every reader brings their own experience to the book they read. That was part of the fun, I brought my own experiences to reading. In my opinion when someone else is reading for you they take away that experience of what you feel being put into your reading. 

Reading is a lifelong skill and something that I use every single day. With the rise of technology such as Audible and other audiobook platforms, readers are losing the fun that comes with a physical book.  I think the hardest thing for me has been learning to get back that joy that young me had when she would open up a book. 

Anna Frasso