After a while I realized that a fairly amount of podcasts/episodes have pretty low density information throughout say a 3 hours talk. There are those gems where sufficiently good preparedness of the interviewer (e.g. read the book and came prepared with a set of well thought-out notes) is met with a suitable rhetorical skill/confidence of the interviewee.
But, alas, I would lie to myself if I believe podcasts are driven by the above.
Personally, I like to hear interesting people talk, it became much a tilted board, so for some time, now, I've cut down my consumption considerably and try to appreciate it as a digital social treat rather than actually knowledge building (very limited).
For that there must be some large enough "active" part involved and as a mere listener I get too comfy too easily. It is a bit like not writing down your ideas, the moment you commit them to "paper" most of the time they are not so "great" anymore and you realize there is more nuance to it ;)
There seems to be a sweet spot of about 20--40 minutes for a good information-dense presentation, and I find that most of the podcasts I find myself gravitating toward aim for this duration, though some may extend to about an hour.
Over that, and both the production is slipping and my attention wanders or is interrupted.
There's also only so much that can really be absorbed in one sitting.
I do like the interview or "issues and ideas" format, though there are also scripted monologues (Peter Adamson, History of Philosophy) which can be quite good. HoP is interesting in that it also features fairly frequent interview segments which ... on the whole are less captivating than the scripted episodes (though there are some exceptions).
Shorter than 20 minutes and there's usually too much structural framing around the key bites, over 60 minutes and either the episode is poorly-edited (there's a lot of cruft which should have been cut out) or there are multiple key concepts being presented. There are exceptions to this, but they are rare.
I'm generally not interested in hearing a multi-person ramble, even on what is otherwise a topic of interest. Panel discussions can work, though those tend to fall into either (1) a series of individual lectures or (2) a multi-party interview when they do work, and rarely work past about 3--4 participants.
Dave Weinberger: "Conversation doesn't scale very well." This has multiple dimensions, in participants, duration, audience, time, and more. True conversation is ultimately intimate: small, immediate, and private.
Yes - I was wondering downthread what the boundary between "podcast" and "radio programme" was, and I think this is an important aspect that makes certain things not documentaries. It's a parasocial (it is after all one-directional) connection through the voice of another human or humans. Some people like to listen to this kind of thing all the time, even if they're not really paying close attention, because they like to hear talking. Broadcasters have understood this for a very long time.
I would say for those long form conversations, I like listening to "interesting" people but I also like to occasionally put on what I call "shit talk". A great example of "interesting" would be just about any guest on Lex Friedman, deep insightful conversations where you often stop to think about what the guest said. On the other side is the "shit talk" podcasts, these are great at the gym or on a long drive when you just don't want to think to hard and would prefer to laugh, for me i like JRE but I think most comedians' podcasts fall into that second category.
I can relate, even if it's not specifically about podcasts for me, but rather any source of information.
How I try to cope is by striving for contextualizing decisions.
Everything I do or could do and every value I attach to something depends on and is influenced by context.
Every choice I make affects more than just one area or part of my life.
My life consists of more than one thing.
Yes, I could spend all day doing X. How would this affect different areas of my life? Is this the single most important thing in my life right now? How will this benefit me? At what cost? Is it worth the cost?
Striving for a more holistic view of my life helps me balance my tendency to lose sight of the whole for focusing in too much on one single thing without context.
Plus, dealing with the roots of my anxiety rather than the outgrowths alone.
But, alas, I would lie to myself if I believe podcasts are driven by the above.
Personally, I like to hear interesting people talk, it became much a tilted board, so for some time, now, I've cut down my consumption considerably and try to appreciate it as a digital social treat rather than actually knowledge building (very limited).
For that there must be some large enough "active" part involved and as a mere listener I get too comfy too easily. It is a bit like not writing down your ideas, the moment you commit them to "paper" most of the time they are not so "great" anymore and you realize there is more nuance to it ;)