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Paper Books, Kindle, or Audiobooks: What鈥檚 the Best Way to Read? - YouTube
Channel: Thomas Frank
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hey what's going on friends so today we
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are answering a question that i've
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gotten asked quite a few times over the
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years which is what is the best format
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to read books in physical books ebooks
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or
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audiobooks where i guess you aren't
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actually reading the book but you are
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still in taking it well i'm gonna save
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you the horse race here because in my
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experience i use all three formats and
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all three of these can be perfectly
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viable ways to intake a book but
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depending on how you are reading and the
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purpose of your reading one of the three
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might have a slight edge over the others
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so that's kind of what i want to go into
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in this video and i'm not going to break
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this video down by the format itself and
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section out that way instead i want to
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look at the purpose for which we read
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because i think there are four main
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purposes for why we pick up a book first
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and foremost we sometimes read for
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relaxation we read for escapism we just
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want to have fun through reading we may
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also read to widen our learning our base
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of knowledge or to widen our tea if you
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want to think about it that way the
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concept of a t-shaped person where you
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have deep knowledge in one area then
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wide expansive knowledge and many other
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areas as well you may also read for deep
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learning to deeply understand a topic
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and finally you might read for reference
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for research for a specific purpose
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where you're trying to pull knowledge
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out of a book and apply it to something
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you're trying to do so for each of these
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four different purposes what is the best
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format to choose well again i think it
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really comes down to what you enjoy
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using all the edges that we're gonna be
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talking here are the advantages i think
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they're slight for the most part and
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ultimately reading and the format you
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choose to read in is just like exercise
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there's no perfect routine because the
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best overall routine is the one that you
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enjoy and the one that you will stick to
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for the first purpose for reading for
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escapism and for fun what is the best
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format well i think in general the best
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format here is physical books there's
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some actual research behind this now the
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first study that we looked at for this
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video was albeit pretty small in terms
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of sample size but they did find that
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versus ebooks people who read physical
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books were actually better able to
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remember the order in which things
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happened in a story there might be
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something to the physical tactile
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sensations you get through reading a
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book the you know the act of turning a
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page the act of remembering which side
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of the book you were looking at when
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something happened that allows you to
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have a little bit better memory of what
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went on than when you're just looking at
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an ipad screen or a kindle screen just
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scrolling through in my case a
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never-ending wall of text because i
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typically use the scrolling mode on the
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kindle app another potential downside to
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ebooks in particular is the fact that we
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often read them on tablets and even the
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kindle devices have web browser built in
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albeit not a very good one and we have
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access to additional information
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additional things we can do with our
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device it gets a little bit harder to
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really sink into the world of the book
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and to really feel like you are reading
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for fun to get lost in the story now
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what about audiobooks for fun reading
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for escapism there are quite a few
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audiobooks i've actually gone through in
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terms of fiction that i've really
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enjoyed specifically the one that keeps
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coming to mind for me while i film this
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video is the martian by andy weir and i
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have the old rc bray narrated version
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that they no longer have on audible
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which is absolutely amazing but i also
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know that i typically listen to
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audiobooks when i'm doing things when
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i'm riding my bike or walking to work or
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doing chores around the house and
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because i'm also doing something else
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that takes a little bit of my attention
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not a ton but a little bit they're gonna
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be pieces that i just sort of tune out
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for i'm gonna have to navigate a road
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crossing or something and that means i'm
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not getting every single bit of the
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story and i'm not totally immersed so
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again i think the edge really goes to
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paper books for escapism style reading
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now what about widening your tea
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widening your base of knowledge well
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like i said earlier the concept of being
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a t-shaped person means that you've
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built deep expertise in at least one
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area but then you're also reading to
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widen your array of knowledge across a
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broad variety of topics and for doing
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that again these are small edges we're
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talking about here but i actually am
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personally going to give the edge to
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audio books and that is because for this
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purpose for just trying to widen your
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base of knowledge that need for complete
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immersion is less important and i'm a
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busy guy i've got a lot of things i have
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to do around the house a lot of time i
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have to walk to work every single day
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there's time throughout the day where i
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have to do something where my attention
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isn't completely taken up and i might
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otherwise just listen to podcasts or
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spotify or just find something to listen
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to on youtube but i can also select a
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book and i can broaden my knowledge on
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something in a pretty shallow way that's
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still interesting and enlightening using
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an audiobook for example i've been
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riding my bike to work over the past few
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months listening to bill bryson's book
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on the human body and i don't feel that
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i need a complete and super deep
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understanding of all these different
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structures i just want to learn for
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learning's sake so the audiobook format
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is perfect for that purpose now aside
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from audiobooks i don't think there's a
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huge edge between ebooks and physical
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books when it comes to this type of
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learning i might give a slight nod to
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ebooks simply because it is typically
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easier to get a new book on a whim and
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there are even library programs that
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will let you borrow ebooks on your
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electronic devices so it's just easier
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to get your hands on an ebook when you
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want to read something on a whim now one
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area where i definitely think ebooks
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have the clear advantage is when you're
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reading for the purposes of research and
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reference when you're trying to pull
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knowledge out of a book and actually do
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something with it synthesize the
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information and write a book report or
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in my case the huge video that i'm
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working on for later this month is an
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ultimate guide to using credit cards
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i've been trying to pull information out
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of several different sources including
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books and synthesize into something that
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i can present to this channel and
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present it to my blog as well so i need
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to pull accurate information i need to
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collect it and i think ebooks definitely
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make this process easier not least which
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because you can search an ebook you can
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easily bring up a little search field
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and you can type in a term and see where
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it pops up in the book additionally
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highlighting and taking notes is quite a
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bit easier with ebooks on the kindle app
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for example you can just use your finger
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and create a highlight and those
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highlights actually get collected in a
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centralized location within the book
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whereas with a paper book there are
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definitely ways to highlight i made an
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entire video about how i highlight and
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take notes from books that you can watch
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after this one but it's kind of harder
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to go find those highlights you don't
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know where they are you can't search
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them and it's a little bit harder to
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collect the information from them than
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it is with say a kindle book
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additionally you can go even further
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than simply highlighting in the kindle
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app and the ibooks app because there is
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an app that i use every day called read
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wise and what read wise does is it
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basically just collects your highlights
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from kindle books but also from articles
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from tweets from certain podcast apps
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and it keeps them in a central
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repository and it goes one step further
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because they have a public api where you
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can export your highlights to apps like
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obsidian rome and in my case notion so i
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use read wise for the express purpose of
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getting my highlights from kindle books
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and from other sources into a notion
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database from there i can add notes to
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them and i can even use synced blocks to
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bring those highlights and those little
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passages that i'm using for research
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into the video script and research areas
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that i'm working on now to be fair to
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paper books there is also a read wise
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app for mobile devices where you can
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actually take a picture of the printed
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page and it has that optical character
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recognition technology so you can
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actually create a read-wise highlight
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from a paper book but it is a little bit
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of a slower and more friction full
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process than just creating a very quick
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highlight in the kindle app and that
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brings us to our final purpose for
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reading which is reading for deep
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understanding as opposed to that wide
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understanding that builds the horizontal
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part of your tee we're talking now about
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that vertical bar building really deep
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understanding of a specific topic and
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here i think the edge actually goes back
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to paper books specifically because they
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make it so much easier to focus not get
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distracted by whatever else is on your
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device it's just a little bit easier to
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maintain focus on a paper book at least
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in my experience than it is on an ebook
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when you're trying to read for deep
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understanding and not necessarily trying
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to pull out references for a research
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project though there is a potential
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alternative so recently a friend gifted
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me the ebook version of alex ramos's 100
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million dollar offers and right in the
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first chapter he mentions that a trick
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he uses is actually getting the
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audiobook version and listening to it
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while following along in the print or
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the ebook version as well and he says it
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actually helps him read faster because
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it helps him to pay attention to the
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ebook for a lot longer now i do want to
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mention that if you do this it's
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probably not going to make you read
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faster from an objective sense and that
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is because ebooks are typically narrated
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at about an average of 150 words per
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minute whereas skilled readers who are
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reading silently to themselves and not
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subvocalizing can typically read between
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200 and 400 words per minute without
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losing a lot of comprehension so unless
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you want to set the audiobook to 2x
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speed which does not sound very pleasant
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to me you're probably going to end up
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actually reading a little bit slower
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than you would if you were just silently
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reading to yourself but if the focus
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benefit is there it might be a useful
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strategy for you now one thing i want to
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mention that doesn't really fit into any
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of these specific categories is that
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ebooks do have a clear advantage over
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many print books and the fact that they
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are more accessible because you can
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easily change the font size you can
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switch things into dark mode you have a
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lot of options there so again at the end
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of the day the format that works best
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for you is going to be the one that is
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number one most accessible to you but
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number two is the one that you enjoy
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reading so hopefully this has broken
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down a few of the different potential
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technological advantages format
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advantages and focus advantages but
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again ultimately the kind of format that
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you enjoy the most is going to be the
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best one the majority of the time it's
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also worth noting that the format of the
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books you read really isn't the most
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important factor to reading more often
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reading more deeply that is building a
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reading habit which in my experience is
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pretty easy to fall out of but it's also
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possible to get back into as well one
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useful tactic that i've used in the past
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is a 90-day reading challenge
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essentially i told my friend martin hey
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i'm going to read non-fiction every
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single day for the next 90 days if i
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don't i'm going to pay you 100 bucks and
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i gave him a spreadsheet where i tracked
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all my progress and he could follow
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along every single day that was a very
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successful challenge i read 11 books
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during those three months many of which
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i reference all the time on this channel
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and actually built my reading habit long
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term after that and there are a lot of
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other tricks you can use for building
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long-term habits whether it's reading
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more books or doing anything else you
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want to do and if you want to learn
[594]
about some of those tricks you may want
[595]
to take my habit building class over on
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skillshare this is a short one-hour but
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information-packed class on how to break
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down your goals into actionable daily
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habits and then actually stick to them
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long term which is probably something
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you've been thinking about recently
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since this video is going live pretty
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close to january 1st so if you've got a
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habit you've been wanting to build or
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you've been trying to build you've been
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failing and you want to find some better
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tactics for getting it to actually stick
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i think you're going to get a lot out of
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this class over 60 000 people have
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already taken it and i would love for
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you to take it as well and guess what if
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you're one of the first 1 000 people to
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click that link in the description down
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below and sign up for skillshare you're
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actually going to get a one month free
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trial which means that you can take this
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class absolutely free and you can take a
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ton of other classes during that one
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month as well including mkbhd's
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the description down below and again if
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you're one of the first 1 000 people
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you're gonna get that free one month
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screen to sign up and if you enjoyed
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this video if you're looking for
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something else to watch i've got one
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more video right there on seven books
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you should read in your 20s and even if
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you're not in your 20s i think they're
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pretty good reads as well
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