Ignore the purists – listening to a book instead of reading it isn’t skiving or cheating | Gaby Hinsliff

From audiobooks to podcasts and voice notes, there's a steady generational shift in the way we understand the world

Insomniacs do it in the middle of the night. Dog owners do it while trudging round the park. Some people do it in the gym, but lately I've taken to doing it alone in the car, on long journeys north through the dark when I need distraction from everything circling round my head.

Listening, that is; and perhaps more specifically, listening to things you might once have read instead. The growth of audiobooks, podcasts and even voice notes - those quick self-recorded clips that are steadily taking over from typed messages on WhatsApp and range, depending on the sender, from something like a brisk voicemail to a rambling internal monologue - reflects a steady generational shift away from eyes to ears as the way we take in the world, and perhaps also in how we understand it.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist