Leaving my devices inside and sitting on the porch, reading a book feels much healthier for my brain. And more intentional consumption than passive noise to kill time.
Isn't that how tarot cards and all that bollocks works?
So audiobook genre fiction is reading, but audiobook War and Peace or audiobook The C Programming Language doesn't count. Not for arbitrary gate-keeping reasons, but because reading those books implies a more active form of engagement than marching linearly through it.
Listening to audiobooks, IMHO, is a more passive and less focused way of consuming literature.
You're not the first person to say this. I have some empathy for this view, even though its the opposite of mine.
For me, audiobooks offer, more space for imagination. More recently its also a more consistent way to get unbroken narrative into my head. However I strongly suspect that is down to how I process information.
I didn't really read properly until I was quite old, however talking radio was quite ubiquitous in my house. There were lots of audiobook-like content. so perhaps its training?
A talented reader can work magic. Ukemi and Naxos have great titles.
And reading on screen is reading.
Audio books are passive content. It's not reading. Not remotely the same brain process.
Also, I'm very much convinced that the brain is distracted away from the content by the voice acting and intonation; same way that most people physically can't concentrate when listening to music with vocals, evolution made us really sensitive to the human voice.