Another podcast, really?
Spotify dinged a message on my phone, “Congratulations! 100 hours of podcasts listened to this year!”
It was March, and that number felt, well…really high. But I wasn’t sure compared to what.
100 hours would feel large if it was hours of tv watched. I think I would feel embarrassing if it was hours of TikTok scrolled. 100 hours could be impressive, though, if it was hours hiking. Podcasts can be classified as informational. Does that make them good for us. Maybe?
I did a quick information grab:
The average American listens to 9 hours of podcasts a week per a data analysis by Infinite Dial.
A Neal Schaffer study found that 62% of Americans (up from 51% in 2022) have listened to at least one podcast in their life.
Multiple studies point to data that deduces audio learners make up 30% of all tested people, compared to 50-65% visual and 5% or less kinesthetic.
Millennial listeners are averaging eight different podcast subscriptions at any one time.
This topic grabbed my attention because I host a podcast, Wild Rice & Co.
My consumption of audio material has skyrocketed since creating on this platform. Less than 3 years ago, it was nearly impossible for me to make it through an audiobook. Now, my yearly reading list is one third narrated books. And while I am getting swept up in this consumer-driven media outlet, I have never really taken the time to think through this question:
What is the larger goal of podcasts and vlogs?
It’d be easy to point to the COVID-19 pandemic to explain why podcasts and audiobooks have increased in popularity. One article, by WORDSRATED written by Dimitrije Curcic, sited a double digit jump of audiobook consumers since 2011. The market data revealing 11% to 23% total. However, this ravenous appetite for auditory type media was on the rise well before the lockdown. While 2020-2022 could have contributed to the rate of consumption, I kept looking for a more lasting explanation.
A pretty outstanding theory of human evolution exists about the activity of gathering around campfires. In the search for the origin of human language, researchers have followed the knotted-up threads of oral tradition. Scientists have been following the lead of human behaviors that most support storytelling and creative remembering to try and determine where our language comes from. Evidence strongly suggests that oral history came before written and recorded history.
And that makes sense. Babies learn to speak before they learn to write and draw. Our first reactions to tragedy and pain are to speak or yell out before we process the experience through journaling, creating art, or making music. More people on earth can utter words than can read or write.
A study published by anthropologist Robin Dunbar in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) found an abstract connection to the warm, cozy, safe feelings we get when sitting beside a blaze and our openness to sharing ideas and memories. Dunbar’s article references the revolutionary findings by Dr. Polly W. Wiessner.
While living in close proximity to the Ju’/hoansi people in Botswana, anthropologist Dr. P. W. Wiessner noticed that fireside talk was designated over 80% of the time to storytelling. Compared to other roundtable time when the community members would discuss daily affairs, money, provision, and other functional topics. We see this in our own culture, too. Many people enjoy sitting beside a fire. People have fireplaces in their homes for leisure more than warmth. Crowds gather around bonfires, grills, fireworks, and torches during celebrations. Conversation and deep thoughts follow. Have you ever wondered why?
While in modern times we gather around fires to roast marshmallows and drink cozy beverages while we swap stories; once upon a time open flames signaled the start of every mealtime, and the time before relaxing to sleep. And as human invention advanced more leisure time was added to the day. Fire light also extended those daylight hours where people could gather.
The next step in the research process was to study why humans are so captivated by an open flame. CT scans on the brains of people watching fire revealed complex neural activity. Dr. Christopher Dana Lynn published in Evolutionary Psychology that our arteries and veins are responsive, too. Campfires stimulate and relax us in the healthiest of ways.
Human history has proven that gathering together is the only way we can successfully create the fabric of society that progresses us as a species. In pockets all around the world we have done this. With the implementation of better travel and advanced communication technology it would seem our cultural community is expanding to a record size. Different traditions and lifestyles are no longer siloed by geography.
Perhaps our craving for audiobooks and podcasts and virtual story times are our modern-day campfires? Humans, especially the generations that are threading together the fringes of society, could be stretching out a much larger blanket that covers one big global community.
And in that activity to understand and embrace one community, we have adapted a massive appetite for information about one another.
I hear it all the time, “I’m so lonely.”
I heard it, and felt it enough in my own heart, to launch a podcast encouraging women to build up their communities. A pandemic, political differences, war, and societal busyness are not sparking human connections.
But maybe podcasts, public forums, and virtual stories are?
Oral history connects us to one another. And no matter how intellectual a podcast might be, in between the lines you can always discover a human sharing a story. We reach for it the longer we stay on the sound wave listening. And for every new episode we return for.
This audio renaissance we are witnessing tells a tale as old as time:
We need one another.