#reading is reading

If you don’t have time to sit and read a physical book, is listening to the audio version considered cheating? To some hardcore book nerds, it could be. But new evidence suggests that, to our brains, reading and hearing a story might not be so different.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers from the Gallant Lab at UC Berkeley scanned the brains of nine participants while they read and listened to a series of tales from “The Moth Radio Hour.”

The study showed that words tend to activate the same brain regions with the same intensity, regardless of input. The subject’s brains were creating meaning from the words in the same way, regardless if they were listening or reading. In fact, the brain maps for both auditory and visual input they created from the data looked nearly identical. 

I know this isn’t as unpopular as an opinion on this site, but I need to say it anyway. READING FANFICTION IS STILL READING! As anyone who’s read fanfics regularly can tell you, some fanfics are just as good if not better than some books I’ve read. A lot of them have complex plot and characters, have good pacing, great descriptions and details, and will genuinely move me and make me think. I also tend to go for fics that are longer. Many of the fics I read are the length of full novels! Fanfics, for me, also help me stay reading without the pressure of picking up a book. It can be hard for me to pick up a book with lots of world building, characters I don’t know, and a story I don’t care about yet. It’s a lot easier to read fanfics because it bypasses a lot of that. I already know these characters, I already care about them and their story. I love fics that expand on their universes! What if an element was changed, what if a character made a different choice? What happened afterwards, how do they deal with the events of their story? I’m not saying that you should never pick up a new book, it’s just easier for me to stay engaged with something if I already have an attachment to it.

Fanfics have their flaws and shouldn’t replace reading regular books. But saying there’s no benefit to reading something that’s not a book is bullshit.