Why Reading Books is Far Superior to Audiobooks & Podcasts

We have a pandemic of youngsters who are lost and disoriented because they DO NOT READ. They are sold the lie by derelict adults that audiobooks and podcasts can replace reading a good book. The first flaw in this is the audacity to reduce books to a singular utilitarian purpose — of collecting facts and data. Sure, ChatGPT can summarise a book for you and give you key points, an audiobook will “save you time” and allow you to multitask, but what about the patience, the imagination, and the focus that holding a book does to you?

Reading engages multiple senses simultaneously, if you breeze over pages with no introspection, you most likely will not absorb anything (the exact activity that people who say they do not like staring at dead wood and hallucinating say.) The color and texture of the pages, the typography, illustrations, page numbers. The way sentences are structured and words strung together, the little voice in your head that reads them with a certain rhythm, the way you decide how the name of a character is pronounced, and the imaginary pictures the scenes paint in your head, are all rites of passage for a young, budding mind. Reading opens their mind by its act — to think, to see, to learn, to be present in the moment, with all focus.

Now most of what reading achieves can only be done through the metric of good books. Who decides what are good books? Naturally, this has been an age-old dilemma. Socrates in his conversation with Adeimantus and Glaucon discusses the importance of selecting the right kind of stories for children. Their brains are malleable and the content they consume will imprint on them, moulding their morals and character. It is because children are so impressionable that Socrates believed in the censorship of literature that would cause harm to these young, innocent minds. He criticized stories of gods engaging in deceit, revenge, or unrestrained passions (e.g., the quarrels and mischiefs of the gods in Homer’s Iliad) as devices that depict the divine as imperfect, setting a poor example for the moral character of young minds. This will cause them to lack an ideal to both believe in and strive for, leading to a culture of victimhood, hopelessness, and despair.

According to Socrates, stories for children should promote virtues such as courage, justice, temperance, wisdom, and piety, the cornerstone of a good, sound moral character. These should be stories of moderation and harmony that neither promote lavishness nor a fixation on misfortune, for children are but kindling, in an exploratory phase. When given the median, they will uncover the extremes in their own capacity and time, shaping their resilience the right way.

When we break this foundation, we find ourselves in the situation of our current reality. Rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies among adolescents. Out of all the factors that are to blame, one happens to be the media and our cultural narratives that push them to think too much about themselves. It is an unwarranted amount of pressure to be obsessed with oneself and its presentation to the world outside. These are minds that are already socially vulnerable, and lacking a steady moral compass, one that will point them to true values, the goodness and excellence that lie before them.

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They need to be thinking less about what others think of themselves and more about inspiration, their desired actions, and the discipline to step into their true potential. May this be becoming more diligent at school and their hobbies, or being socially adept and lovable, or simply, daring to be eccentric and radically different. They possess the capacity to achieve great things. But they are thrice removed from this reality when they are brainwashed with lies, degeneracy, and brainrot. Poorly executed political stories and low-hanging fruit humor, are inundated with messages that distort children’s intrinsic values, leaving them detached from meaningful ideals

There is only one corrective measure for this. To read good books. Old books. Well-written books. Complex enough books. Ancient literature filled with pearls of wisdom, for every age, can illuminate even the darkest of minds when read earnestly with hope. Start today.

Thank you for reading,

Shevaun Pimenta