I agree that reading has been taken for granted these days, but as you mentioned, humans, especially men, are visual and can process things better when illustrated.
Even though I think the statement Chad C. Mulligan made is too overarching, I readily concede to him that the pathway of visually reading text to solidly accumulate and store information is likely the best one.
People read and comprehend at varying levels, but I found over the course of my life that nothing compares to reading at being able to cogitate on the material and store it long term where it is more readily available for retrieval and use.
Audio is okay, but not nearly as good. Visual can pack different types of spatial or other knowledge which (in my opinion) stores reasonably well, but doesn’t have nearly the depth that text has.
It is true that men are visually-oriented and women are verbally-oriented, but in all cases, different pathways for information intake are often variable in the degree they are open or closed in people, regardless of gender or race.
It has been a sadness for me that I can no longer read as I used to. It isn’t that I can’t read for ten minutes, break for ten minutes and read for ten more, etc, but in doing that, the pathway for taking in, processing, and storing of information is not open long enough.
I have thought long on this, and I believe that when you read, you need time to build that pathway for information. Each time you begin to read, you have, at best, a rough, overgrown, and unpaved road. (at least for me, others may be different)
As you begin to read, the overgrowth of vegetation is pushed back, the road is graded, asphalt is laid down, and guard rails placed not just to keep you on the road, but to keep other things off the road.
The longer you read, the smoother is the road, the higher the throughput of the road, and the more solidly what you read on that road is registered in your brain.
I think most people who enjoy reading know this.
Who, in becoming engrossed in a book has never found those guardrails so high, that road so smooth and unobstructed, that time and place disappear, the hours melt away, and you live what you read. You become aware that it is now 4 AM, and you have been reading all night. You retain, understand, and enjoy that book in ways that you rarely can with a movie or video, and even more rarely with audio.
Sigh. I miss that. I cannot read in that fashion anymore. I cannot construct that road in my mind. Reading has become more of a chore than a pleasure, and it breaks my heart. I used to go on a weeks vacation, and I would bring five full novels with me, and finish them all. Now, to read one novel, I have to work at it, and it takes me months, and I don’t enjoy it.
Oh well. If that is one of the crosses I must bear as I age, that isn’t the worst of them, for certain.
"I agree that reading has been taken for granted these days, but as you mentioned, humans, especially men, are visual and can process things better when illustrated."
I hear rumors that there are some really good audio books on YouTube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utc1RbcZ3tY
As to your comment, I do agree that visual might be better but what if that is completely unavailable? Then what are some other options?
When paper is your only option, adding auditory is definitely a good second best. We didn’t wait for someone else to do it for us. It needed to be done, so it was done.
As for ad blockers, overall I don’t spend much time on YouTube.