The Convenience of Learning Through Audio Books, Podcasts, & YouTube
Perhaps you, like most people, just don’t have time to sit and read books. Don’t worry, if you speak English then you are in luck. At this moment in time one of the greatest evolutions in learning is taking place. With the advent of internet video, audio books, and podcasts it is now becoming possible to learn through listening the same way that people traditionally learned through reading. Reading is still faster, but listening is far more convenient.
Podcasts don’t cost anything, except maybe that you listen to the occasional ad. You can have your phone download them while you have access to wifi so you can listen to them without internet access. This means you can go for a run, a walk, a long plane flight, and be listening all the while.
The Bliss of Multi-tasking with Podcasts
I love listening to podcasts while cooking, doing dishes, drawing, cleaning the house, on long bike rides, while running, walking, and driving. Having your hands and eyes do one thing while your ears and brain engage in learning creates a blissfully satisfying experience that feels extremely good for your soul.
Apps for podcasts
If you use apple, it has a podcast app. If you use Android, google has a podcast app. I use Android, and have used multiple apps over the years, but these days I have resorted to using Google’s podcast app.
Schedule a time to Download podcasts automatically.
If you don’t want the app using your data but you do want to go about listening to them, then you’ll want to go into your settings and schedule a time for the app to download new episodes when you know you’ll consistently have wifi access, perhaps overnight or while at work/school. You may also need to add them to your playlist afterwards. Each app is different, but ideally you should be able to make all this happen each day automatically once you have your settings setup properly.
YouTube Lecture Series
Some of the greatest university professors have recorded lectures on fascinating subjects posted at full length on YouTube or in podcasts.
Here are my favorites.
Jordan Peterson’s The Big 5 Personality Traits Course
I recommend the next two for for anyone with a healthy interest in storytelling or religion.
Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning Course
Paul Cantor’s Shakespeare and Politics
Raia Grean’s History of Religion, Science, & Magic.
Eventually I want to listen to this one. It’s quite famous
Richard Feynman’s Physics Lecture Series
Video Essays
There is a genre of YouTube videos I call video essays, that combine visuals and audio to make a book’s worth of content into illustrated, animated 10 minute videos.
These are my favorite video essay channels
Lessons from the Screenplay (scriptwriting)
Just Write (scriptwriting)
The Nerd Writer (analysis of pretentious art/artists)
Game Makers Tool Kit (game design analysis)
Kaptain Kristian (90’s pop culture)
Extra Credits (game design) | Extra History | Extra Science Fiction
Must Listen to Podcasts
Some of the most compelling stories I have ever heard came from popular Podcasts like
Radiolab,
This American Life, and
Revisionist History.
Planet Money gave me a critical understanding of how global economics really work at the macro and micro level, in a way that any poor loser could understand.
The podcasts I listed above are so good, so educational, and so thoroughly well produced and entertaining that it would probably be better to go and listen to their entire archive before going out and trying to find other podcasts to subscribe to.
If you like these you can find their more like them from podcast companies like Wondery, Gimlet, and NPR. The ones above also have spinoffs, for example Radiolab also produced a series I really love called “Dolly Pardon’s America.” All of Gimlet is in fact one big spinoff from Planet Money.
Life-long Learning & Small Talk
Learning in this way, both actively and passively, by choosing well what to watch and read while resting, has been for me like a low cost college education of sorts. I attended an art school where the majority of our classes were a combination of technical digital art courses and traditional art courses. There was no emphasis put on the humanities or core subjects so I missed out on a lot of the general education that most university students get exposed to. But by constantly reading, watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, and watching educational YouTube I feel that I have more than made up for my lack of education. In fact when I visit campuses and ask students what their major is, I can usually find some way to open up an interesting conversation based on their major. It is rare that I cannot tell them some interesting discovery or story unique to their major that even they haven’t learned yet, whether it be science, economics, behavioural psychology, recreational math, literature, language, or political science. It also helps you to make a great first impression on anyone with a curious mind.
