jaredharley
Terry GodierNew essay:
Phantom Fluency
Why listening to smart people doesn't make you more thoughtful. You're not bad at remembering podcasts. Podcasts are bad at being remembered.
Oiva Eskola@tg small quibbles, but I think it depends on the podcasts you listen to. It’s not unusual for tech/nerd podcasts to have show notes which are also searchable on a website. And the more topical shows I listen to have chapter markers dividing each episode into topics.
But more often I’m just listening to hear my “friends” shoot the shit for an hour. I listen just because I’ve listened to the same guys for 5–10 years.
@tg there was recently talk about AI generated podcasts and that feels a bit alien? They are not people I care about and they don’t have a deep history in talking about the subject.
But I guess it makes more sense if your motivation to listen is to learn new things and make use of your time (successful or not.)
@oivaeskola totally, this could absolutely be n=1 for me and that’s ok! I do like show notes and chapters but are those really reference-able a few months later?
cuddlyanarchist 🎓 MMus@tg
I'm in a similar boat to @oivaeskola . I think podcasts can be really good in terms of information and research and learning, in the same way that interviews, lectures and speeches can, they just ask for a different type of engagement than text. I can't go and reference every sentence of my lectures at uni, but if the lecturer was good I understood a concept better, and knew where to go to read more and *how* to read that resource. With recordings and chapters, I can go back, listen again with new ears. The learning is part of a process of learning, and in that sense I think the words can be very alive. The podcast Bloodwork puts it well, at the end of each episode: “Bloodwork is a discussion, consider this your invitation”.
Of course, not all podcasts work this way, but the ones I find myself wanting to listen to (that aren't entertainment focused) do.
And with regards to referencing, so long as I can find the episode (and preferably thewsegment), I don't have anything wrong with podcasts being difficult to find references for. If I'm looking for a specific piece of information, that should be in text as a reference material, and likely already is somewhere. Otherwise, if I'm looking for a quote or an observation, I think there's a value in re-listening.
GunChleoc@cuddlyanarchist @tg @oivaeskola I think the problem here is the "as long as I can find the episode" bit. A global index of chapter titles and making show notes searchable would go a long way here I guess.
@gunchleoc @cuddlyanarchist @tg yeah. I just take issue saying this is a limitation of podcasts (“MP3 does not know what the episode is about, who is speaking, when topics change”)
I see it more a producer problem. There’s nothing stopping you from adding a transcript to show notes, or dividing an episode into a hundred chapters, and then surfacing that information also on web. Some podcast services already publish the show notes.
@gunchleoc @cuddlyanarchist @tg But again that depends on the podcast if that makes sense. There’s no adding chapters to Roderick on the Line 😅
@oivaeskola i agree, i could have been more nuanced here. But most podcast players won’t be showing transcrpts online. It’ll be a secondary thing to keep open and reference.
Dave bauer@tg Ohhh this is a tough one! I take notes when I need to remember something, but mainly I use podcasts to fill the time. This is why I have a list of hundreds of podcast episodes to listen to when i can actually pay attention saved, 'for later'
@davebauerart hundreds? Ow!
@tg I may have exaggerated but its ok, all the unlistened podcasts are hanging out with the open browser tabs and unread books in my office.
Aleph Two@tg I get it! I do listen to a lot of podcasts I don't need to remember, mainly my friends, i have stumbled into a weird part of the creative community where everyone seems to have a podcast (including me, but only my friends listen to it). I try to take notes but half the time I am driving so it's a challenge! But I do think I am learning slowly through repetition and hearing different perspectives on the same topics.
Daniel Gomes@tg “Podcast listening inverts the spacing effect perfectly. You hear an idea once, in full, with no review, no testing, no return. The conditions for forgetting are ideal.”
Yes. And they are too long. Instead of a 30 minute podcast discussing and dissecting one topic, they skip through topics like a newsreel.
In the end you don’t remember anything specific. And you only just skimmed the surface of the topic.
@tg I like your idea about a podcast player that it shouldn’t look and work like a music player.
Maybe one day you can explore a podcast app in the vein of Current?