By: Mia Maaytah

I imagine myself pre-pandemic: a university student rushing to class, onboarding the familiar streetcar going ever-so slowly down King Street in downtown Toronto.

I stand with my hand clutching the rail and peer out of the window. My thoughts are drowning in the early morning whirl of fellow Torontonians.

I choose to pop my headphones into my ears to ignore it. As I unlock my phone, I receive a notification of a new podcast episode. I click on the tab and I transcend into an episode of You Must Remember This about Merle Obseron.

I look around at those swaying next to me in the streetcar. One is younger than me, their phone dim and showcasing the logo of Barstool’s explicit podcast, Call Her Daddy. Another one is older, dressed in a navy suit. His headphones are too loud, and emit the sound of financial advice from The Canadian Investor. 

We all cyclically smile and frown throughout the stories we hear, our interests peaking and anticipation growing. We stand separately as we consume the same type of media.

How could we all be so entranced with the voices of strangers?

However, my listening only started once the platform began receiving attention from the masses. And by looking at the statistics, it seems I am not the only one who seemingly bandwagoned on the trend.

 In 2020, nearly 8 million Canadians listened to podcasts at least once a month according to Canadian Podcast Listener Report.

Within this report, British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta were ranked Canada’s top hubs for listeners with almost two thirds of them having a university-level education.

The power of voices and sounds

In only three years, the audio storytelling world has grown undoubtedly popular. The question is, why is podcasting so compelling?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the human connection to voice. Popular American poet Maya Angelou said “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Though I question whether this notion was of poetic nature, or hinting to something more psychological. 

I think of myself on the streetcar once again. I hear the noise of the commuters around me, the whispers of a mother to her child, the sighs from the man staring at his watch.

I think of the quiet community of podcast listeners, escaping into an edited audio-file of differing frequencies. I think of the human voice, and how a podcast episode may appear as avoidance, but is only a catalyst to more noise.

The human voice is capable of communicating 24 emotions, especially through nuance and in nonverbal exclamations, according to a 2019 American Psychological Association study published within the University of Berkley’s Greater Good Magazine.

The study suggests humans are attuned to even the slightest of sounds, “such as the bonding “coos” between parents and infants—that we can pick up on the subtle differences between surprise and alarm, or an amused laugh versus an embarrassed laugh,” writer Yasmin Anwar noted in the article.

Podcasts are lifting both voices and supplementary sounds to create a bond with listeners. It’s said to be the most intimate digital medium. Currently, podcasting is not only a hero due to its familiarity, but because of its ability to patch up the loneliness caused by COVID-19.

Audio as part of your routine

Over a year ago, almost half of podcast listeners in Canada and the United States accessed episodes through smartphones and downloaded apps, according to Edison Research.

Leaning on this technology, North Americans usually reserved their listening time for their commute. Yet, with the COVID-19 lockdown, people’s routines blew up and many ditched their commutes and began working from home. The result? A dip in listenership.

There was speculation that the medium would take a long-term hit. Spotify reported the drop mimicked typical weekend listening trends. But within three months, as people redefined their routines, there was an increased number of listeners, surpassing pre-pandemic listener stats. 

The increase may come from the need for a reprieve from screen time. Before the pandemic, the use of screen time was worrisome but not overly concerning. Yet, after a year of virtual education, workplace, and training, the online fatigue is real.  

In February of 2021, Stanford researchers identified why the remote environment may be such a hassle: the awareness of one’s own image adds to exhaustion, video chats increase immobility throughout the day, and video chats allow no room for nonverbal communication.

Now, individuals may be fatigued, but are unwilling to isolate themselves from digital media altogether. Once again, the hero that is podcasting exists in the middle: a mix between sensory rest and human engagement.

In fact, studies have shown that audio stimuli may be more impactful than visual stimuli.

“Vocal emotion recognition even has a separate brain region from facial recognition of emotion,” Emma Seppala, author of Does Your Voice Reveal More Emotion Than Your Face? said. 

“When two people talk and truly understand each other, something quite spectacular happens: Their brains literally synchronize. It is as if they are dancing in parallel, the listener’s brain activity mirroring that of the speaker with a short delay.”

Thus, podcasting exists for individuals both as an escape and as a way to connect.

For myself, podcasting is both a hobby and a potential career. I can find solace in listening to new episodes as they get published, while simultaneously launching Adobe Audition to begin editing my own.

Although it feels as though podcasting is new, it presents itself with familiarity that is eternal. Though its technology is novel, our joint love of audio storytelling can be argued as the charm of human existence.