How to Keep Up With the Podcasts: Don’t
They’ve become high culture, like adult homework. And I’m not doing it anymore.
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Every morning, after I drop off my daughter at day care and prepare for the walk home, I take out my phone and stare at the unplayed podcasts. Do I continue with another episode of Homecoming, a scripted thriller about a war veteran, or catch up on global news analysis with Monocle’s Foreign Desk? Would I rather laugh with the fictitious but all-too-believable Jewish grandmothers Ronna & Beverly or work through someone’s unsettled past on Jonathan Goldstein’s Heavyweight?
I scroll. I listen for a half-minute. And then I close the podcast app, open Spotify, and play some Bill Withers. I love podcasts, but I’ve got a case of podcast fatigue.