In Defense of Text to Speech

Lately, my YouTube feed has been full of videos declaring that no one can read anymore.

Kids can’t read.
Adults won’t read.
People don’t want to read.

From there, the predictions escalate quickly.

The death of learning.
The collapse of schools.
The failure of institutions.

I think this is overplayed.

Not because nothing is changing — it clearly is — but because panic is a poor substitute for understanding.

Before we declare the end of learning itself, it’s worth slowing down and looking at what is actually happening.

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One theme keeps coming up again and again in these conversations.

People prefer to listen to information rather than read it.

Audiobooks.
Podcasts.
YouTube.
Text to speech.

This preference is often framed as evidence of decline.

I’m not convinced that’s the right conclusion.

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Listening is not new.

It’s ancient.

For most of human history, information moved from mouth to ear, not from page to eye.

Stories were told.
Instructions were spoken.
Knowledge was passed down through voice, repetition, and memory.

Silent reading — the kind most of us think of as “normal” — is actually a relatively recent development.

For centuries, reading was done aloud.

In families.
In churches.
In schools.
In public squares.

The idea of sitting alone, silently absorbing text is a specialized skill, not a biological default.

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The human brain evolved for sound long before it evolved for symbols.

We are tuned for rhythm.
Tone.
Emphasis.
Repetition.

A voice carries meaning beyond words.

Urgency.
Warmth.
Confidence.
Doubt.

When we listen, we’re not just decoding language — we’re interpreting intention.

That’s not passive.

That’s pattern recognition.

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This may help explain why listening often feels more complete to people.

When we read silently, we have to do several things at once.

Decode symbols.
Construct an inner voice.
Maintain attention.
Hold meaning in working memory.

Listening reduces some of that friction.

The voice does the pacing.
The emphasis is supplied.
The continuity is preserved.

Different medium.
Different cognitive workload.

Not better.
Not worse.
Just different.

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Text to speech fits naturally into this picture.

It’s often treated like a shortcut.

Or a crutch.

Or a way of avoiding “real” reading.

But another way to see it is as a bridge.

It keeps people connected to ideas.
It keeps language flowing.
It keeps attention engaged when eyes are tired but curiosity isn’t.

That’s not avoidance.

That’s adaptation.

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None of this is an argument against reading.

Reading still matters.

Writing still matters.

Silent reading builds precision, discipline, and depth in a way nothing else quite does.

But listening has always been part of learning too.

Long before books.
Long before classrooms.
Long before institutions.

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So when we see people choosing to listen instead of read, we don’t need to jump straight to collapse narratives.

We can pause.

We can recognize that humans have more than one way of taking in information.

And we can remember that learning didn’t start with a page.

It started with a voice.

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Aaron Rose is a software engineer and technology writer at tech-reader.blog and aaronrose.blog.