The Podcast Generation

Our family started podcasting back in 2005 or perhaps it was 2006 although we stopped in 2007.  The audience just wasn’t there.  Randomly I was out in SF and heard our podcast on a radio station which made sense because that is where people were listening to content.  Smartphones have changed all of that.

To be able to listen to really interesting conversations from the arts to technology to Government to science to almost anything is a powerful form of education.  I have always loved the concept of lifelong learning yet there are many people who don’t read books as often as they would like, don’t read the paper as often as they would like (but these days I get taking a break from that) or find themselves not embracing anything new post-college.

What I love about podcasts is they are pushing us to think differently.  It’s seamless to take in vs reading. It’s ambient almost like music but it pushes our minds in different ways than music does.  Both are good but the experience of dropping in on other conversations can be brilliant and insightful.  There are nuggets in every podcast I listen to.

Some are certainly terrible and far from entertaining but if you dig deep, you can listen to many interesting conversations almost like you are eavesdropping on the table next to you at a restaurant.  That is how I do my podcast.  There is so much out there it is almost overwhelming.  I gave up TV years ago (that is a whole other conversation) because I love to read.  I tried to do a few knitting projects but I couldn’t knit and read at the same time so knitting lost out.  After all, there is only so much time in the day, so I don’t want podcasts to take away from my music intake but I do enjoy a good hearty conversation more than anything else.

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    Agree.And a listener to yours as you know.Wrote this when I got into them a few years ago. You might enjoy it.Rediscovering storytelling http://arnoldwaldstein.com/

  2. Robin Bobbe

    Totally agree with you. At the gym, driving upstate, cleaning, etc. Although music always wins out when I run. You are among my favs.

  3. Sierra Choi

    There is something about the human voice that resonates so much information that we don’t consciously think about. I love podcasts for that reason, you can really get to know what someone is thinking just by how the person speaks.

    1. Gotham Gal

      So true