Re: Audio Content: How Much Is Too Much?
This is a reply to this original post from Darren Hester: Audio Content: How Much Is Too Much?
At first, from the title of the post, I thought this was going to be Darren sharing a voice recording instead of typing out a post so I saved it for much later in the weekend and didn't get around to it until last night. Silly me! Sometimes I interpret things too literally.
I often find myself in the same boat as Darren. I listen to a LOT of podcasts (I don't do audiobooks, I've only listened to two in the last two years, both by Cory Doctorow), and when I get the chance I listen to multiple episodes at once when I'm doing other things: biking, walking, cleaning, video games, working - basically any time I'm not also reading something else1.
Most of the podcasts I listen to are general entertainment in nature - during sports seasons, I listen to hockey (32 Thoughts: The Podcast, Sens Call-Ups) and baseball (At The Letters) podcasts. Those tend to get "first dibs" in my listening priority because they're timely and I want to get the information from them. The rest are usually evergreen and I listen to them when I get around to them, but there are some that are more timely (Decoding TV) and I try to get them out of the way.
But after that when I find myself with a lot of free time and ability to binge episodes, I do the same thing as Darren:
I listen to back-to-back episodes, not giving myself time to process what I've heard.
I probably couldn't tell you very much about the history of the production of Rogue One from listening to the Going Rogue podcast series, but I can tell you that I find the content enjoyable in the moment.
Also from Darren:
The constant audio stream prevents me from letting my mind wander. My thoughts are crowded out, and my attention is divided, making it difficult to fully engage with the present moment.
100%. When I listen to podcasts, I get lost in the audio in the moment. Occasionally different thoughts will take over and tune out what I'm listening to but not often. I'm not usually able to think creatively unless I'm either listening to nothing, or just listening to music (more often listening to nothing).
I applaud Darren for the self reflection and putting the headphones away for a few days. I do this from time to time, take a short break and reset. Sometimes it's just too much and is information overload.
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If I start reading something I tune out whatever is going into my ears so if I'm doing something where I'm reading or writing I try to limit it to music, or nothing at all. Even as I type this, I'm listening to a radio show I recorded and tuned out the last talk segment of the show and had to rewind and stop to listen to it.↩