Choosing Podcasts Over YouTube

Lately, I’ve been listening to more podcasts. Last year, I spent around 36.6 hours listening to them. It’s now February 2024, and I’ve already listened to nearly 21 hours, which is about 57% of what I listened to last year.

This year, I want to start watching fewer YouTube videos and listen to more podcasts instead. There are a few reasons for this. With podcasts, I can choose what I want to listen to, and I’m not stuck with what an algorithm picks for me. Plus, it helps save my phone’s battery.

My phone is old, and watching YouTube videos drains the battery quickly, no matter which version of the app I use. Also, YouTube’s suggestions haven’t been great for me lately. On the other hand, listening to podcasts reduces how much I use my phone and saves battery.

I tried an experiment for three days where I didn’t use YouTube at all, just podcasts for entertainment. I only listened to 2-3 hours of podcasts each day during this test. Surprisingly, my phone’s battery stayed between 70% and 89% at the end of each day. If I had watched YouTube instead, it would have been around 40-44%.

This post doesn’t talk about my favorite podcasts or anything like that, but I’ll write about them soon. It just gives you an idea of how I use podcasts.