What does the recent popularity of podcasts say about us? I don’t mean individual podcasts, whether they be spiritual, scientific, or…whatever Joe Rogan is. Though all of these podcasts might differ in theological, political, or economic assumptions, the skyrocketing popularity of the podcast must say something about human nature or about human nature as it relates to our specific moment in history. For context, there are more than 5 million podcasts in the world today. This does not refer to individual listeners, but the number of individual podcast shows! Globally, there are over 464 million podcasts listeners, and the podcast business is becoming even more lucrative, supposedly worth over 23 billion dollars.
Clearly something in podcasts powerfully attracts people. In his insightful work The Shallows, Nicolas Carr argues for the importance of the media by which we consume content. Reading a book is significantly different from watching a Netflix TV show, for instance. Similarly, a TV show is a different medium from a podcast. On-screen action may distract from dialogue in TV and movie mediums, but a podcast can be video-recorded or audio-only, meaning the dialogue (or monologue) is central. Though podcasts have radically diverse views, all podcasts display through their medium the importance of conversation.
But mediums also reflect objective ways in which the human mind operates. For instance, Carr points out that the “invention” of spacing words while writing relaxed the mental powers of reading, allowing medieval readers to, well, read faster than their ancient counterparts. As a more contemporary example, television is so popular (and so addicting) because it exploits the very real ways that the brain operates, giving viewers dopamine hits to increase producers’ revenue. Mediums certainly convey messages to us, but mediums also have messages they convey about us. For books, that message is about our difficulty chunking words from long lines of letters. For television, that message is about our willingness to spend countless hours watching soulless, mind-melting content saturated with flashy special effects. But I digress.
Any medium gives messages both to and about man, and podcasts are no exception. Because podcasts so strongly stress the importance of speech, podcasts also reveal the human need for speech. And not just speech. The success of the podcast demonstrates the deep human need for conversation. In many podcasts, two or more podcast “hosts” meet to talk about their topic of interest, and their listeners almost eavesdrop on their conversation. Of course some podcasts have only one host, but these usually direct a conversational and welcoming tone to the listener. In either case, podcasts allow their listeners to experience conversation, and the public is clearly buying into it. Listeners – in some sense – are able to enjoy a “meeting of the minds,” or at least an illusion of it.
Yet podcasts are an illusion of good conversation. Watching two people talk online is much like the new trend of watching others play video games; it’s just not as fun as doing it yourself. This is not to say that podcasts are bad, but they are simply not as enjoyable as real conversation. Yet their popularity bears testament to a profoundly conversationally-starved culture. The growing number of podcast listeners shows that increasingly, the deep human need for good conversation is chronically unfulfilled.
Perhaps you’ve felt this hunger. Perhaps not. If you have, seek out friends with whom you can fulfill that need. Feast on good books and share them with others. A campus community like ours is ripe with opportunities for conversation if we would only look for them. And if you have been blessed with a life full of good conversations, you might be uniquely able to help satisfy that hunger in those around you. Don’t hoard that gift. Sometimes we get the sense – or we tell ourselves – that the people around us don’t want to think about meaningful things, and so we talk about the weather or our problems.
The podcast problem tells us otherwise. 464 million people tell us otherwise. Our neighbors, friends, and family are desperate to share meaningful thoughts with another human soul.
We can bless them by sharing good conversation.
