I'm a little confused about the sample rate:

If I have an audio file that was recorded with a sample rate of 48kHz, this means that there are 48,000 values per second in this file, right?

So when I read this file with a smaller sample rate of lets say 44.1 kHz I am summarizing every 44,100 values to one second so effectively I make the audio slower and thus longer than it actually is. Am I getting this correctly or do I have a total misunderstanding?