For Your Listening Pleasure: Podcasts

Many people responded to the COVID pandemic by adopting new recreational activities. Listening to podcasts was one such activity. Podcast audiences in the U.S. grew by 40% over the first three years of the pandemic (1). Although the medium has been around for about twenty years, Nielsen found that over half of the consumers surveyed in March 2022 started listening to podcasts within the last two years (1,2). The volume of available content has also risen dramatically through the years (3). Spotify’s About webpage indicates they have over five million podcast titles available (4). With so many podcasts at hand, choosing which to devote listening time to can be a bit overwhelming. In an effort to discover which podcasts are popular with colleagues, this author decided to ask the local medical librarians’ professional organization about their podcast listening habits. In fall of 2022, a link to a short survey (six questions) was distributed via the local professional group’s listserv. Listserv subscribers were asked to complete the survey whether they are podcast listeners or not.