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Balancing Incoming Media

I’ve recently been grappling with the number of forms our information takes during our modern era. Video, audio, the written word; long form and short form; published versus self-published; professional versus homemade. Almost a decade ago—when my commute changed from thirty minutes each way in a car to bussing, biking, or walking to work—I swore off audiobooks and subsequently podcasts as a way to get my information. I found that forcing a form of media I didn't care deeply about into my daily life had just become too hard, but podcasts (in particular) are hard to ignore entirely because they truly are varied and now a category of entertainment all their own.

This all came up because of the major rewrite of the app, Overcast. Overcast is written by Marco Arment, a developer I have been supporting and following for a long time. Overcast is a great podcast app, but as I don't listen to many podcasts, of limited value to me personally. However, one of Marco's podcasts had a technical breakdown of the work that went into this rewrite, so I listened to it within Overcast (as you do) and I was reminded of why podcasts are a form of media to revisit.

An Aside About Bookmarks

This all comes back to bookmarks for me because so frequently I used bookmarks as a means to keeping track of things that were happening on the web, regardless of their format. As the web has changed over the years, bookmarks have become less useful but also less able to capture the intent of the bookmark, e.g. you can't bookmark a link to a Facebook post easily because Facebook doesn't want you to engage with the platform in that way.

Nash's newsletter last week was about his Bookmarks setup (or lack thereof) and was directly in response to our conversation on the topic. He has a good breakdown of the apps he uses when working with links in his daily life.

Since clearing out my bookmarks last month, I have recreated one bookmark for my most used work application. I tried Safari's profiles feature as a means of creating some division between personal and professional history and bookmarks, but that added complexity that was unnecessary in this experiment. However, I noted that the way I use the browser is assisted by bookmarks, not bogged down by them.

There are times when you go to a resource once in a while, but it has an obscure (not memorable) URL; those items need a bookmark because Safari then knows of them regardless of how often you use them. In practice, this means that I will recreate the handful of common (but not necessarily frequent) use bookmarks that enable some "intelligence" in Safari.

All in all, however, I think the move away from bookmarking as a habit was good for me because I should be more intentional about the "why" of my collecting and approach the idea of splitting it out into other apps and resources based on need. Some examples:

  • I want to try this recipe: put it in a journal or recipe app.
  • I want to add this information to a project I am actively working on: put it in the resources for that project or to-do list.
  • I want to read this article: put it in the read later list and have a method for clearing out old items.
  • I want to reference this information: define in what way(s) and put it in place to be used, whether journal, note, writer, or PARA folder.
  • I want to get to this specific site again in the future: perhaps bookmark it.

One other thing I have been thinking about (probably fodder for a future post) is where hand-written notes fit in here. Recipes, as a good example, could be something that I start to write down instead of always saving the genuine article. I don't actually use the recipes verbatim in practice anyway.

Audio Media in a Noisy World

Perceptual Thinking Patterns was a two-day workshop I took about ten years ago that taught me a lot about myself. The crux of the workshop was that we all learn in three ways: kinesthetic (movement), auditory (hearing), and visual (writing). However, within each of us is a preference for each thinking pattern in turn. A person who prefers to jump into a problem and use their hands to solve something (think people who like puzzles) are likely to have a preference for the Kinesthetic thinking pattern. As an engineer in background, it may seem obvious that this would be my preference.

A kinesthetically-preferenced person still learns using the other two, but it takes more time and energy to learn in the other ways; that person would have to focus on the task harder to get the same result. At the end of the workshop, you have a general idea of what approach you prefer and it comes with a three letter designation. I was labeled a KVA, meaning that I prefer using my hands to accomplish tasks, followed by visual stimuli, followed by auditory.

What I realized back in that workshop was very frequently when listening to an audiobook or podcast, I would tune out and have to revisit things later that I had missed. Within the context of the workshop, however, this is more than just being distracted; it was that I was more easily distracted when the stimuli required more of my attention to absorb. Years later, I would swear off podcasts and audiobooks because it just took me too long to get through and retain all the content I was trying to engage with.

Our world has gotten noisier, though. Having headphones in all the time is commonplace and Apple has features created specifically to allow in specific types of noise (see transparency mode, adaptive noise cancellation). So in addition to this realization that I personally needed to be more focused for auditory stimuli, I had no interest in blocking out the world around me while others so readily did.

This all brings me back to podcasts generally and Overcast more specifically. There are types of engagement that must be done using an auditory method, think about learning a spoken language or listening to music.

Since leaving the world of podcasts, I don't think I have missed out on too much, but at the same time, podcasts are one of the last bastions of democratized access. We have all gotten used to other forms of media being available via proprietary means (Netflix has an app and you can only watch Netflix content in the Netflix app), so having options that allow for public access is better for everyone.

Overcast is a great podcasting app and I am glad that I can openly choose it or any other option that adds a feature that Apple's own Podcasts app doesn't address. Swearing off auditory stimulus is impossible and undesirable because there is both important information and beautiful art in this space; I just happen to be much more intentional about what I listen to now.