We already know that book sales have been decreasing over the past few years. With new devices such as kindles and iPads books are no longer a necessity to our entertainment. We have found replacements that have almost eliminated bookstores and allow us to download any book we want on demand. To match our fast-paced life styles, we have found a way to continue reading without having to carry the weight of a book. But we have also found another way of absorbing the contents of books without reading at all: audio books.
Audio books are probably the easiest form of reading available to us today. In fact, we don’t have to read at all, just listen. Audio books enable us to listen to our favourite books anytime and anywhere without any effort at all. To make things even better, listening to an audio book allows us to not only perceive the story of our chosen book, but it also lets us do something else at the same time. You can for instance easily download an audio book and then listen to it whilst travelling, cooking, gardening or almost any other activity you can think of. Through this we have opened ourselves to a whole new range of technology and possibilities, enabling entertainment on the go and without any effort. We have created a new method of reading that allows us to listen to a chosen book and at the same time we have the freedom to do whatever we desire. Our ears listen, whilst the rest of our body continues working.
There are many great features that have made audio books so successful in recent years. Apart from listening to an entire book without having to read yourself and being able to fulfil daily tasks, audio books are super easy to handle. When downloading them you can look at various All You Can Books rankings, recommendations and categories, and you can even connect with your friends to discuss your preferences. Producers and publishers have paid enhanced interest in audio books and have made an effort to bring in celebrity narrators for a more dramatic effect. In fact, audio books are one of the reasons for growing voice over recording studios all over the world. With audio books, recording studios have created and endorsed an entirely new industry. Paperback books have almost completely vanished from our lives and have been replaced with the much easier and modern way of “reading”.
Another main benefit of the audio book is the seemingly obvious fact that you do not have to read yourself. Listening is much easier than reading as it involves less brain activity. Through less concentration, audio books seem like a more enjoyable experience as it is in the simplest form just storytelling, similar to the storytelling we experienced in our childhood. Having a story read to you also means that audio books have changed our reading experience. We can now choose what exactly we want to experience whilst we are listening to a book of our choice. That means we also perceive what is read to us differently than as if we were to read it ourselves. Rather than paying attention to the language itself, we have it pre-interpreted for us, and focus more on how the storyline is expressed. Additionally, the progress seems to be sped up, as we no longer turn back the pages to remind ourselves of a previous paragraph or re-read something when we are distracted. We can simply rewind the recording and skip to the exact places we want to repeat, re-listen or review.
Audio books have completely changed an entire industry and massively underlined the importance of voiceovers. They have indeed become one of the most successful and easiest ways of entertainment.
Author Bio: Lisa Ryan, who works on a project for Apartments in San Sebastian, is the author of this piece of content.
