Podcast: Meaning, Importance, Benefits, Recommendations
According to IFPI’s market data, an average person spends about 18 hours a week listening to music (“Music listening in”, 2019). Through this statistic, there is no doubt that music plays a big part in our lives and keeps us entertained, motivates us during times of need and helps us heal in a way as well. We all listen to music and have made it a means by which we go about our day whether we play it in the car, at home, or even when we’re completing our chores. Although, for most people, music might be an important part of their life (for various reasons), there is a more productive way one can spend this time and simultaneously learn something new each day. This is possible through Podcast.
Podcast is defined as “an episodic series of spoken word digital audio files that a user can download to a personal device for easy listening” (Wikipedia, n.d). Currently, there are 850,000 active podcasts and over 30 million podcast episodes (Lin, 2020). There is a foray of genres that podcasts cover which include education, personal development, religion, sports, technology, etc, and endless podcasts made by different people for each genre allowing you to gain insight on a topic through different lenses and opinions. As mentioned earlier, an average person spends about 18 hours a week listening to music…. Now imagine if we spend at least half of this time listening to podcasts, we can only wonder how much knowledge we would be able to intake and grow as a person?
Podcast offers numerous other benefits, some of which are explained below:
1. Free Source of Entertainment
- They are at large offered for free
- Audiobooks are purchased usually for $15 a piece with around eight and twenty hours of listening hours whereas, you don’t have to pay a cent for most of the podcasts out in the market and can listen to numerous podcasts for as much time as you like (O’Keefe, n.d.)
- Even listening to the largest music library can get us tired, especially if you’re out of new songs, however, podcasts can provide with a ‘breather’ from music and allow for a change in mindset as well
2. Great Means of Education
- They are an excellent way to learn new things about a particular field of your interest
- Podcasts are usually conversations instead of stories which also make podcasts more engaging and interesting allowing our mind to subconsciously take in information while enjoying the episode simultaneously
- As podcasts are a verbal form of communication, it is a more intimate way of receiving and intaking information as opposed to a document or email (“At a glance:7”, n.d.)
3. Optimal Productive Usage of Time
- Whether you’re stuck in traffic, waiting for your doctor’s appointment or are engaging in mindless chores, this is an extremely productive way to utilize your time
- They are a great way to help pass your time and the conversation-style in these podcasts lighten up the mood and allow for an increase in productivity as you are engaging your brain while gaining insight into something new
- INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE, ENTERTAINING
4. Positive engagement of brain (Bergman, 2017)
- When listening to audio content, our brain is working much harder as it has to not only take in the audio content but turn it into a whole sensory experience
- This is why the brain absorbs so much of information from podcasts
- They keep your brain in a state of heightened concentration (Bergman, 2017)
5. Business Perspective (Ads within podcasts increase Revenue)
- Podcasts are a great means to increase brand awareness
- Around 54% of listeners are more likely to consider buying from a brand after hearing its advertisement on a podcast (eMarketer, 2019)
- Furthermore, podcast listeners are more likely to follow brands on their social media site
- Podcast advertising revenues are expected to surpass $1B in 2021 (eMarketer, 2019)
There are numerous amounts of podcasts that are great to listen to in various different genres, however as I write about personal development and self-help, I will be providing some recommendations of podcasts to boost your confidence and learn about various different aspects of self-growth:
- Candid Confidence
- Unf**k your Brain
- Style your mind
- Not overthinking
- Optimal Daily Living (Highly Recommended!)
- The Daily Robbins Podcast
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