It may sound a little bizarre to all of us at the Sonic Society, but Ki Sung at KQED News finished an article entitled Listening Isn’t Cheating: How Audio Books Can Help Us Learn.
I remember reading some time back an experiment that had hooked up an MRI to various participants. Those who read a book had a lot of “magic” happening in the brain as readers need to envision settings, characters, sights, and sounds. However, Audio Drama works the brain even more, as a single sound may be the only cue a listener gets in which to build a world. Audio books sort of bridge the two mediums.
However you slice it, audio is good for the brain.
Oh, and television? You guessed it. Leaves the cranium with a cold whistling sound in comparison.