There’s research, such as Poerio, Giuulia and Totterdell on The Effect of Fiction on the Well-Being of Older Adults that suggests audiobooks can be good for your brain.
Update: The Fix for Wednesday, the 14th of March, corrected the Pixel Audio stopping error.
The opposite, however, has been stalking some Audible users. Android users have had problems with the Audible app cutting out and stalling in the last few days. These stutters are especially common on the Pixel 7 Pro, and for users with Pixel Buds or headphones in.
Poking the app, or even touching your right earbud twice, once to stop the stalled Audible playback and then again to start it, is enough to restart the narrative, but only for a bit. It’s frustrating.
The good news is that Audible seems to be aware of the problem. At least, on Reddit, the user Audible_Com is responding to people. The Audible Reddit account has been apologising in the comments that are now rolling in, sometimes restarting threads months old, and reassuring people that the team is aware of the problem and is working on it.
Of course, u/Audible_Com could be anyone, but that would be a damp fish of a prank.
Girdy is a hardcore Audible listener and will update this post joyfully if and when the tech team fixes the problem. The sooner Audible and Android play ball, especially with voice interaction, the better.
In the meantime…
A summary of The Effect of Fiction on the Well-Being of Older Adults
The study investigates the impact of fiction audiobooks on the well-being of older adults, specifically in comparison to non-fiction audiobooks. The research design was a longitudinal RCT intervention.
Interestingly, the study did not find that listening to fiction significantly improved well-being compared to listening to non-fiction audiobooks.
However, there was a positive finding for those who reported being more engrossed in audiobooks. This group showed increased well-being even after they finished listening to the audiobooks. This suggests that engagement with the content, rather than the format itself (fiction vs. non-fiction), is more important for positive outcomes.
Other Audible news
Audible has been in the news for better reasons lately. Super-star author Brandon Sanderson had pulled out of the Amazon-owned platform, unhappy with the lack of transparency in pay. He said it hit less famous authors even harder.
However, Audible has been trying to bring back the blockbuster writer, and Sanderson says he’ll return. Why? The audiobook shop has agreed to change things so that authors can more clearly understand what they’ll make and get a better cut.
The good news is that Audible says it will roll out these payment terms, or at least improvements, to other authors.
Audible UK is currently letting new members stack two deals. Firstly, you get one month free, and then, secondly, if you’re also an Amazon Prime member, you get two more free titles.
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