I don’t think podcasts are for me, but maybe I’m missing out on something. I don’t even really know how to play them. Do you stream them or pre-download? People listen to them on their commute do they, or while driving? So requires a cellphone contract with no download limit? I guess you don’t just sit in your living room listening? And you wouldn’t be able to pay attention while cooking right? I don’t think I can take in information in real time, and I hate meetings, so I’ve always assumed I should stick to reading and writing for studying.
I use an app[0] that pre-downloads them, and I listen to them on the treadmill at the gym; while cooking or doing household chores; as background when I'm coding at night; and, sometimes, to help me get to sleep. For every one of those uses except the treadmill I sometimes listen to music instead.
Oh yeah, and I sometimes listen to current-affairs stuff in the morning, but owing to time zone differences that can be tricky.
I'm sure a lot of people listen to them while driving or otherwise commuting, but my commute is by tram and by foot, and it doesn't fit that well.
I don't find it distracts me from cooking, though from coding sometimes yes (then I switch to music). I don't just sit in my living room listening without anything else going on, but I don't think that would be weird. I'd listen to podcasts in the bath if I had a bathtub.
It took me a while to find a set of podcasts I really like. This is different for everyone, but I think it's worth spending some time on. I'm still looking for good ones on a few topics that seem under... undercasted? I think there's still room for a lot more good podcasts, and some of them will even make a good living for the host.
You can download everything on WiFi if you like, but they're just audio files so it doesn't eat that much out of a normal-ish mobile data plan.
Give them a chance, and try a bunch of different ones before making up your mind. I ended up liking podcasts way more than I expected I would.
you mostly predownload them over wifi. you listen during commute, driving or otherwise. yes you can pay attention while cooking, just depends if you can multitask.
Recall the original iPods. They didn't have network connectivity at all. A desktop computer running iTunes would automatically check for & download new episodes of podcasts subscribed to in it, and they would be synced to an iPod when it was plugged in to charge.
