I don’t know about you guys, but lately, I’ve become increasingly more aware of my phone usage. These days, checking my phone screen time feature has been downright painful and embarrassing. Often, I find myself emerging from a late-night TikTok scrolling session, not realizing that an entire hour or more has passed. I’ve tried the occasional remedy, like plugging my phone in at night away from my bed or setting restrictions on how much time I can spend on specific apps I just can’t seem to stick to these resolutions. However, I recently came to a realization that the way to get me off my phone is not to restrict my access to certain apps and socials, but rather, to change what I’m consuming in the first place. My solution: listening to podcasts.
Podcasts have changed the game for me as far as what I seek from my phone for entertainment. In the past, I’d listen to the occasional podcast on a road trip or just when I had no new music I was into, but now they’re something I’ve started to crave throughout the day. Whether I’m folding laundry or struggling through my statistics homework, I’ll usually have a podcast buzzing in my headphones. Because engaging with podcasts requires you to use just one of your senses, it allows you to engage with other activities simultaneously that I would otherwise be avoiding by scrolling through my phone. Listening to music gives a similar effect, but there’s just something so much more fulfilling about listening to a podcast and actually learning something interesting or new from it. I’ve also found that because podcasts are often an hour long or more, my attention span for entertainment is increasing. The several-second video format of TikTok really encourages the consumption of cheap and instant gratification from content that I’ve been glad to step away from since listening to podcasts.
There are so many types of podcasts out there that there’s something for everyone. If you want some mindless entertainment to listen to on your walk to class or you’re looking to be educated on a topic you’ve grown interested in, there’s always a like-minded person or two who is making a podcast about it. I listen to most of my podcasts on Spotify, and its huge digital library of countless episodes and helpful categories is what has steered me toward my favorite ones today. Whenever I need some funny conversation and commentary on current pop culture events, you can find me trying not to burst out laughing at the Emergency Intercom podcast hosted by internet celebrities Drew and Enya. Now if I’m feeling more academic I’ll listen to podcasts like Ologies which dives into every weird and wonderful scientific field you can think of, or The London Review of Books, which to my English major brain, is like pure gospel. And although Spooky season has officially come to a close I will always indulge in an episode of Lore or Morbid no matter the time of year to indulge in some scary folklore or creepy historical tales.
I get that some people may think that latching on to yet another mode of digital entertainment like podcasts isn’t an ideal fix for a social media addiction. After all, it still requires your phone or laptop so it’s not exactly an “unplugged” activity. I know this, but in this day and age, where so many of our generation’s vices come from our reliance on the digital world, choosing the lesser evil of listening to a podcast over doom-scrolling for hours is a win for me.