Why YSK: if you don’t have the ability or time to devote your visual attention to reading, you can still engage your mind the same way as you do while reading by listening to an audiobook. Virtually any modern audiobook player will also let you select the play speed, so you can listen to books at whatever rate you’re comfortable with.
Personally I know as I’ve gotten older the number of hours I’m physically able to read tends to no longer be able to match my desire to read, so it’s nice to be able to keep going even if my eyes are sore.
Historically, this is somewhat analogous to the late 19th century lectors that worked in some factories, paid by donated workers’ wages, to read/perform popular books for bored workers. Predictably in the US factory owners tended to have a problem with their workers listening to ‘communist literature,’ leading to firings, strikes, and violent crackdowns.
This doesn’t mean they’re the same thing. This is an area of ongoing research (because audiobooks have only recently become very popular) so there are surprisingly few studies on the topic, but the general consensus is that they’re not the same thing. For example, while reading you go at your own pace and can easily re-read or skim words or sentences, but you can’t do this when listening to audiobooks.
I’d link you to a nice essay I read(!) on this last year in a Finnish newspaper, but it’s in Finnish so most users here probably won’t get much out of it… Actually what the hell, I’ll link it anyway: https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000011260022.html