The problem I have with podcasts is both a personal problem with the format as well as a more general observation. That problem is: Time.

I’m not the kind of person who can pay serious attention to a lot of things at once. I can’t sit and listen to a proper discussion while trying to hack together some code at work and make any progress. This morning I found myself either listening to The Talk Show and not working, or missing huge sections of the conversation. Incidentally, I’ve had the same problem all my life – when I’m reading a good book, the rest of the world goes away. People can walk up to me and start talking, and I honestly don’t hear them until they say my name REALLY loud or get in my field of view. If a TV is on, and I can see the screen, I lose track of conversations around me – even ones I’m in the middle of. It’s really kind of irritating in a way.

It also limits my podcast consumption to about 90 minutes a day, on average, which is the round-trip time I’m on the bus to and from work. I find that I can’t even think of squeezing in all the things I’d want to listen to in the iTunes Podcast listings. Between the daily financial shows, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and How Stuff Works’s CarStuff, I don’t have any time left in the week’s commute to consume new stuff, and every addition to the list means that something else drops out.

I’m seriously tempted to just give up and read books on the bus instead.