It seems to me that it's harder to retain knowledge gained from audiobooks. Has this been scientifically validated? What's your approach to counter this effect (if it exists)
I find it nearly impossible to retain any information from audio sources, be they podcasts or audiobooks. Lectures are usually fine, unless they're just someone standing up and talking. Presentations with suitable diagrams, animations, illustrations, or photographs are OK, but far, far, far away the best medium for me is the written word supported by appropriate diagrams.
For me, podcasts and audiobooks are a (near) complete waste of time.
Yes, I find it harder to follow along audiobooks. Like if my reading comprehension is 100%, my audiobook comprehension is 75%.
In practice this means that I am unable to listen to most novels as audiobooks, unless the writing style either has a lot of meandering / redundancy (so when I space out for a while, I still understand what's happening) or the writing style is very active and engaging, especially first person narration without a lot of characters to keep track of. I can "get" The Martian, I cannot however listen to a Russian novel.
In practice I try to optimize for easier books on audio, especially nonfiction, as there's not a ton of characters to remember. I do find that I am able to comprehend harder nonfiction books, as many of them are organized more like a series of essays. But most of the fiction I listen to is very "pop" fiction like Red Shirts.
I actually buy a second copy (paper or drm-free pdf) if I decide I need to remember an audiobook or take notes.
Even just being able to flip back to a previous section is something that paper books excel at. You get a sense of “what page something is on” (a sense of place) too, which helps the memory and referencing stick. Audio is for straight-through “reading” that doesn’t need to be as “active” because of that, and everything I read that needs to be remembered or studied does need more of an active reading approach
Same here! I’m pretty sure this is because listening to an audiobook is more a passive discipline (and I often do something else at the same time, like walking in the street) where reading is more an active one.
I still remember enough (at least I think I do), and it is not rare when I really enjoyed an audiobook that I buy the paper version afterwards.
FWIW, I find that I retain information from audiobooks and podcasts more readily than I do from written text. So, this is probably one of those things that varies from person to person. I've also been listening to podcasts for a long time, so maybe that's conditioned me.
I’m the same way, I can vividly remember most books I listen to. Though maybe that is related to me being quite picky with which narrators I listen to.
When I find a good one I’ll start exploring what else they’ve read and pick those up too.
For me, podcasts and audiobooks are a (near) complete waste of time.