5 Disadvantages in Using Audiobooks to Sort Out
Every advantage has its counter disadvantage. Not all readers find the usage of audiobooks beneficial. Visual learners have difficulty analyzing what they hear from the audiobooks. As a result, they prefer reading it in hardbound books or e-books.
However, there might be ways to sort out the disadvantages as the world is slowly adapting to the digitalization of almost all activities we do daily.
5 Disadvantages in Using Audiobooks
Here are five disadvantages of using audiobooks that we can try to counter with solutions:
1. May suffer from information overload.
Reading requires comprehension, and listening needs it as well. Using an audiobook for more extended hours may overload your brain with information. For some, their brain may require some pause time to process everything they heard.
Solution:
Most audio learners can keep up the pace of using audiobooks for longer hours. On the other hand, visual learners always need some pause and rewind controls in their audiobooks to grasp everything they are listening to. And yet, these are just normal.
Learners vary with different learning mechanisms, and not all the time, our brain works perfectly as how we expect it to be.
2. May listen twice or more in the missed out parts.
It is not a new experience that we may listen to some parts of the audiobooks more than twice as we want to understand those confusing plots and critical details that we missed. Repeating and rewinding some chapters in an audiobook substantially prolong its listening time.
Solution:
Although this experience is inevitable, we can try to cope with it by using some note-taking tools. Some of the things you may list are the time intervals of the complicated passages you want to rewind. You can also pause to analyze and do a little research about the definition of words and idioms.
3. Usage is dependent on the internet and electricity.
Internet may be available almost anywhere in the world. However, there are still some far-flung areas where internet connection is slow and, worst, not available. There may also be instances when devices run out of batteries, and an electrical outage will suddenly occur. Audiobooks primarily need these two technological supplies for them to operate appropriately.
Solution:
Suppose you plan to go to areas where electricity and internet are not available. In that case, you may make some preparations if you want to access an audiobook during your trip. Downloading an offline version of the audiobooks on your devices and preparing fully-charged power banks or batteries are things that we need to be ready in case of sudden vacation trips.
4. Online purchase requires payment card information.
As audiobooks require the usage of digital devices, acquiring them will always involve cashless transactions using our online payment cards and digital payment services.
Solution:
We need to address this concern by adapting to the impact of technology in our lives since it will be there forever and will continually flourish. However, we still need to secure our online payment transactions as online scams are rampant nowadays.
5. Uncomfortable with the narration
There may be instances when fast readers find it tiresome that the narration is slower from their reading pace. Some users criticize how poorly the narration of a particular audiobook that it destroys the overall mood of the story.
Solution:
Some audiobooks have a feature where we can change the reading speed of the narration. Suppose there are no features that can alleviate the uncomfortable narration. In that case, we can raise that concern in the comments section.
It is vital to acknowledge the user’s negative experiences as it can be the source of any improvements that audiobooks may try to fix. The solutions given in each disadvantage are only suggestions and advice on how we can continue to use audiobooks. It is also a way to prevent the resistance to technological advances that we are thankful for its occurrence.