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The video shows scenarios of people listening to pdfs of pretty dense material (e.g., computer science, bio mechanics). Does anyone here actually have positive

The video shows scenarios of people listening to pdfs of pretty dense material (e.g., computer science, bio mechanics). Does anyone here actually have positive results doing this? It seems to me listening to anything that's even remotely complex with the intent of learning it just isn't something that's feasible.

nice__two 2y ago
That’s my biggest gripe with audiobooks: good for fiction, not so good for learning.
- yreg 2y ago
  For me they are actually best for non-fiction, but it has to be books. Papers are too information dense. I get easily distracted and lose attention while listening to an audiobook. This is usually problematic with fiction, because suddenly I don't know who this new character is or what's happening. And rewinding to the precise position where I stopped paying attention is of course much more difficult than in written text. I found that non-fiction books work great for me, because even if you ignore a page or two it makes no difference, the author keeps repeating their point and propping it up with many arguments anyway.
woodson 2y ago
I used to have papers read to me via TTS when I had a long commute. This was before the current crop of neural TTS, mind you, so the quality and naturalness wasn’t as good, but it was good enough to tolerate and to get the gist of a paper. It failed terribly on equations, of course, but that’s often not too important on the first reading.
lynx97 2y ago
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qnleigh 2y ago
It depends a lot on the paper. I've been using a TTS app to read papers for years. Papers that are really equation dense, convey they key ideas in figures or get too detailed aren't listenable. But sometimes review articles or papers with one clear message hit that sweet spot and are very listenable. There's one topic where everything I know about it I learned by listening to a review article on a long run. It was actually quite pleasant!
neom 2y ago
Severe dyslexia here, but ask me about any conversation or audio book or class I've listened to. Gimme anything audio and gimme it at 1.5x plz! I spend so much money gen'ing audio these days but it's soooo nice to be able to learn so quickly now.
- sky2224 2y ago
  Oh that's totally fair, and I'm happy to hear that audio books have been such a huge help for you! But just to clarify, do you listen to dense material on commutes or while on walks or are you listening and taking notes at a table or something? That's my main point. As someone that doesn't have dyslexia, sitting at a table and taking notes while reading dense material is already quite difficult to do when I'm trying to actually learn the material. I couldn't imagine being effective in my learning by just listening while on an early morning commute or something like the promotional video shows.
  - neom 2y ago
    to your point, if it needs to sink in I'm sitting in silence in my thinking room looking at my white wall or eyes closed, listening, pausing, thinking, listening, rewinding. notes etc are pretty useless for me, this probably sounds insane to you, but my memory can't process written words that I'm aware of (reading is just me saying things back to myself in a inaudible whisper) - It's slightly uncomfortable, but can listen to multiple things at the same time and think about them separately (the news and an audio book), not as good at that was I was in my 20s and 30s, but still there. I find it impossible to imagine how people who can read and can take notes etc think, I have no clue, so I presume my thinking style might be hard for someone like that to grasp also?

nice__two 2y ago

That’s my biggest gripe with audiobooks: good for fiction, not so good for learning.

yreg 2y ago
For me they are actually best for non-fiction, but it has to be books. Papers are too information dense. I get easily distracted and lose attention while listening to an audiobook. This is usually problematic with fiction, because suddenly I don't know who this new character is or what's happening. And rewinding to the precise position where I stopped paying attention is of course much more difficult than in written text. I found that non-fiction books work great for me, because even if you ignore a page or two it makes no difference, the author keeps repeating their point and propping it up with many arguments anyway.

woodson 2y ago

I used to have papers read to me via TTS when I had a long commute. This was before the current crop of neural TTS, mind you, so the quality and naturalness wasn’t as good, but it was good enough to tolerate and to get the gist of a paper. It failed terribly on equations, of course, but that’s often not too important on the first reading.

lynx97 2y ago

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qnleigh 2y ago

It depends a lot on the paper. I've been using a TTS app to read papers for years. Papers that are really equation dense, convey they key ideas in figures or get too detailed aren't listenable. But sometimes review articles or papers with one clear message hit that sweet spot and are very listenable. There's one topic where everything I know about it I learned by listening to a review article on a long run. It was actually quite pleasant!

neom 2y ago

Severe dyslexia here, but ask me about any conversation or audio book or class I've listened to. Gimme anything audio and gimme it at 1.5x plz! I spend so much money gen'ing audio these days but it's soooo nice to be able to learn so quickly now.

sky2224 2y ago
Oh that's totally fair, and I'm happy to hear that audio books have been such a huge help for you! But just to clarify, do you listen to dense material on commutes or while on walks or are you listening and taking notes at a table or something? That's my main point. As someone that doesn't have dyslexia, sitting at a table and taking notes while reading dense material is already quite difficult to do when I'm trying to actually learn the material. I couldn't imagine being effective in my learning by just listening while on an early morning commute or something like the promotional video shows.
- neom 2y ago
  to your point, if it needs to sink in I'm sitting in silence in my thinking room looking at my white wall or eyes closed, listening, pausing, thinking, listening, rewinding. notes etc are pretty useless for me, this probably sounds insane to you, but my memory can't process written words that I'm aware of (reading is just me saying things back to myself in a inaudible whisper) - It's slightly uncomfortable, but can listen to multiple things at the same time and think about them separately (the news and an audio book), not as good at that was I was in my 20s and 30s, but still there. I find it impossible to imagine how people who can read and can take notes etc think, I have no clue, so I presume my thinking style might be hard for someone like that to grasp also?