I guess it's a matter of preference, because in my mind there's no way listening takes less brainpower than reading.

We usually think in linguistic concepts even when reading a book, one of the most difficult things to do with a student when they are learning drawing is teaching them to really see instead of thinking of linguistic traits. I have aphantasia and it is difficult for me to recall visual traits so instead i focus on visual recipes, or construction while drawing. It is difficult for me to recall faces for example but if i reduce a face to geometric shapes and proportions and do a lot of trial and error so i can approximate a face I've seen.

So when reading is not that I am seeing things, but i am making a conceptual map, an abstraction. Kinda like how dreams are like stories we tell ourselves to the point they might seem like intangible images. Sometimes I feel my brain relate stuff i read to things i've already seen, or builds some conceptual bridge between known concepts to unknown ones.

But reading is also a practice on itself different than hearing. Language has aesthetics, rhythm character. I feel i learn more about the aesthetic beauty of language by reading it on the page than hearing it on an audio book because it forces me to build that bridge between my horizon of understanding and the authors'.

This is especially true for authors that have an entirely different background than me because to understand them i need to read slower and research. Something that audio books doesn't allow with it's predisposed presentation.

I don't think this is very related to phantasia.. With a book you can stop and think about things (imaginatively or critically). With video your entire attention is captured and it's quite difficult to step away from the narrative being presented. In my experience audio is somewhere in between, and I'm able to zone out on my own tangent sometimes (but this is annoying, because I miss things)

I do too, and I didn't know it was different for others until I was an adult. When I was young they used to guilt trip me for wasting my intelligence because I hated books.

I grew up inspired by creative world building shown in movies like LOTR and in games. I read more than most people, but it's never books.

I hate how so many people fail to consider others might not have the same perspective or needs.