Discussions on whether the digitization of literature deprives people of the physical experience of reading have taken the literary community by storm. Thousands are left wondering if the introduction of e-books and audiobooks is bringing about the death of traditional hard copy.

However, some argue these digitized tools and resources encourage reading.

“Reading has always been a bit boring for me, but listening to audiobooks allows me to engage with the story more,” sociology student Yesenia Alcala said. “I am more of a visual and [auditory] person, so reading the words off of a page doesn’t activate my imagination much.”

Reading from physical text is not for everyone. Whether it be dyslexia or hyperlexia, visual impairment, or language barriers, there are plenty of obstacles that prevent people from indulging in reading.

Audiobooks mitigate these issues by using the medium of sound. The first audiobooks emerged in 1932 when the American Foundation for the Blind established a recording studio to produce vinyl records for books.

Now, in the digital age, audiobooks perforate online, and literature is not the only field digitization has been introduced. Apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels take the forefront of entertainment among teens — their attention spans are trained to consume 15 seconds of spoon-fed media.

The UCLA School Mental Health Project reported a 28 percent increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, diagnoses from the early 2000s to the late 2010s. They found this was largely due to television and media consumption. Gen Z became immersed in television as early as the synaptic development ages between one and three.

“[This shortens] children’s attention spans, contributing to attention problems by age seven,” the UCLA study by Sang Yon Yeum states. “[Kids grow up watching] fast-paced shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, where scenes change on an average of every 11 seconds.”

It gets more complicated as kids get older. Now that young adults use social media sites that shuffle through stimuli faster than television, the impacts are immediate and worse than cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants.

As symptoms of ADHD worsen, reading becomes more difficult. Bibliophiles are concerned reading will become a lost art. University of Iowa elementary education major Haven White described how her attention span is intertwined with her reading habits.

“I wasn’t allowed to have a phone until I was 14, and that’s when I got social media. Throughout the four years I’ve had my phone and TikTok, I realized something very quickly,” White said. “When I was 12, I could sit down and read a book in one sitting. I can’t do that anymore.”

Books require longer periods of concentration without any additional visual stimuli. Once accustomed to the fast-paced stream of content provided by social media, it becomes increasingly difficult to commit to a book. Compared to a slew of loud, 10-second videos, a book that contains hundreds of pages of branching plot points feels like a different language.

“I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 15. I just didn’t know why everyone seemed to be able to stay on the same topic all the time. I had to be switching focus constantly,” White said.

One of the solutions to this is to reduce screen time and media consumption, but that is not a realistic goal for many.

The next time you wake up to snooze your alarm or call your mom to check in, it is likely that your mind and fingers will drift and become entangled in the cobweb of doom scrolling. With so many ideas, people, and events enticingly woven together, it is hard to blame people for getting stuck in it.

Alcala is the perfect example of someone victim to doom scrolling.

“In one sitting, I can end up spending over two or three hours doom scrolling. The videos are addicting because they’re funny and super short. It keeps me entertained,” Alcala said.

Books are also a source of entertainment, but they are unable to grasp our attention in the way that social media has learned to.

Mitigating this, audiobooks have become a nuanced, innovative form of “reading” that effectively weaponizes this weakness in people’s attention spans. Nursing student Cora Bryan has recognized that audiobooks help her multi-tracked mind.

Someone with a one-track mind may find it easier to concentrate when directing their energy and focus on one thing at a time. People with ADHD, however, have racing thoughts and see higher levels of productivity while multitasking, because it exercises and satisfies their multi-track mind.

“My ADHD makes me easily distracted, so I use audiobooks to help me stay on task when I clean up or go on walks,” Bryan said.

Shorter attention spans drive students with ADHD away from tasks that require a one-track mind. Consequently, task completion becomes all the more laborious, but audiobooks allow people to engage in two or more things at once.

Listeners can occupy their minds with a continuous story and their hands with whatever they’d like, whether that be doing the dishes, cleaning their room, going on a walk, or working out.

“I love being able to multitask. If I’m doing something that doesn’t require me to engage heavily with the material, like homework, I can get my reading for school done or read for fun,” Bryan said. “Even when I don’t have time, I can still get my school work done because I am able to multitask.”

Many Americans have flocked to audiobooks instead of physical books. According to the Audio Publishers’ Association, over 67 million Americans listen to audiobooks annually. The number of available audiobooks has rapidly increased with over 35,000 published annually.

Iowa City Public Library Collection Services Coordinator Anne Mangano said 146,224 audiobooks were checked out this last fiscal year.

“Audiobooks are one of our fastest growing collections in terms of use. Library users checked out more than 40,000 audiobooks than they did two years ago — a 32 percent increase,” Mangano said. “This isn’t surprising, it matches numbers reported by Publisher’s Weekly for U.S. adults.”

Mangano’s life is intimately connected to books. Aside from being an enthusiast of historical fiction and British classics, she has spent 11 years cataloging and processing digital and physical materials for the library.

“There is a link between audiobooks and the ability to do something else. Many of our users report that they listen to audiobooks while they are doing something else, like chores, exercising, or driving,” Mangano explained. “I listen to books, and I also read books. And like everyone, I do find myself drifting to other thoughts in either version. But I also find myself immersed. A good book is a good book, and it’ll grab your attention either way.”

Discussions on whether the digitization of literature deprives people of the physical experience of reading have taken the literary community by storm. Thousands are left wondering if the introduction of e-books and audiobooks is bringing about the death of traditional hard copy.

However, some argue these digitized tools and resources encourage reading.

“Reading has always been a bit boring for me, but listening to audiobooks allows me to engage with the story more,” University of Iowa sociology student Yesenia Alcala said. “I am more of a visual and [auditory] person, so reading the words off of a page doesn’t activate my imagination much.”

Reading from physical text is not for everyone. Whether it be dyslexia or hyperlexia, visual impairment, or language barriers, there are plenty of obstacles that prevent people from indulging in reading.

Audiobooks mitigate these issues by using the medium of sound. The first audiobooks emerged in 1932 when the American Foundation for the Blind established a recording studio to produce vinyl records for books, increasing accessibility.

Now, in the digital age, audiobooks are proliferating online. Literature is not the only field in which digitization has been introduced. Short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels take the forefront of entertainment among teens, their attention spans trained to consume 15 seconds of spoon-fed media.

The UCLA School Mental Health Project reported a 28 percent increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, diagnoses from the early 2000s to the late 2010s. This was largely due to television and media consumption. Gen Z became immersed in television as early as the synaptic development ages between one and three.

“[This shortens] children’s attention spans, contributing to attention problems by age seven,” the UCLA study by Sang Yon Yeum states. “[Kids grow up watching] fast-paced shows like “SpongeBob SquarePants”, where scenes change on an average of every 11 seconds.”

It gets complicated as kids get older. Now that young adults use social media sites that shuffle through stimuli faster than television, the impacts are immediate and worse than cartoons like “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

As symptoms of ADHD worsen, reading becomes more difficult. University of Iowa elementary education major Haven White described how her attention span is intertwined with her reading habits.

“I wasn’t allowed to have a phone until I was 14, and that’s when I got social media. Throughout the four years I’ve had my phone and TikTok, I realized something very quickly,” White said.

“When I was 12, I could sit down and read a book in one sitting. I can’t do that anymore.”

Books require longer periods of concentration without any additional visual stimuli. Once accustomed to the fast-paced stream of content provided by social media, it becomes increasingly difficult to commit to a book.

Compared to a slew of loud, 10-second videos, a book that contains hundreds of pages of branching plot points feels like a different language.

“I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 15. I just didn’t know why everyone seemed to be able to stay on the same topic all the time. I had to be switching focus constantly,” White said.

One of the solutions to this is to reduce screen time and media consumption, but that is not a realistic goal for many.

With so many ideas, people and events enticingly woven together, it is hard to blame people for getting stuck in the cobweb of doomscrolling.

Alcala is a perfect example of someone victim to this digital behavior.

“In one sitting, I can end up spending over two or three hours doom scrolling. The videos are addicting because they’re funny and super short. It keeps me entertained,” Alcala said.

Books are also a source of entertainment, but they are unable to grasp our attention in the way that social media has been programed to do.

Mitigating this, audiobooks have become a nuanced, innovative form of “reading” that effectively weaponizes this weakness in people’s attention spans. UI nursing student Cora Bryan has recognized audiobooks help her multi-tracked mind.

Someone with a one-track mind may find it easier to concentrate when directing their energy and focus on one thing at a time.

People with ADHD, however, generally have racing thoughts and see higher levels of productivity while multitasking because it exercises and satisfies their multi-track mind.

“My ADHD makes me easily distracted, so I use audiobooks to help me stay on task when I clean up or go on walks,” Bryan said.

Shorter attention spans drive students, particularly people who have ADHD, away from tasks that require a one-track mind.

Consequently, task completion becomes all the more laborious, but audiobooks allow people to engage in two or more things at once.

Listeners can occupy their minds with a continuous story and their hands with whatever they’d like, whether that be doing the dishes, cleaning their room, going on a walk, or working out.

“I love being able to multitask. If I’m doing something that doesn’t require me to engage heavily with the material, like homework, I can get my reading for school done or read for fun,” Bryan said. “Even when I don’t have time, I can still get my school work done because I am able to multitask.”

Many Americans have flocked to audiobooks instead of physical books as an alternative way to consume literature. According to the Audio Publishers Association, over 67 million Americans listen to audiobooks annually.

The number of available audiobooks for listeners has rapidly increased with over 35,000 published annually.

Iowa City Public Library Collection Services Coordinator Anne Mangano said 146,224 audiobooks were checked out this last fiscal year — a number that has been on the rise in the past several years.

“Audiobooks are one of our fastest growing collections in terms of use. Library users checked out more than 40,000 audiobooks than they did two years ago — a 32 percent increase,”

Mangano said. “This isn’t surprising. It matches numbers reported by Publishers Weekly for U.S. adults.”

Mangano’s life is intimately connected to books. Aside from being an enthusiast of historical fiction and British classics, she has spent 11 years cataloging and processing digital and physical materials for the library.

“There is a link between audiobooks and the ability to do something else. Many of our users report that they listen to audiobooks while they are doing something else,” Mangano said. “I listen to books, and I also read books. And, like everyone, I do find myself drifting to other thoughts in either version. But I also find myself immersed. A good book is a good book, and it’ll grab your attention either way.”