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I drove so much today that I got to listen to an entire episode of This American Life: #731 What Lies Beneath.

That's a partial truth, I guess—I listened to most of it while parked and waiting for my time to pick up dinner. (Nixta. Yes.) But it was an Exciting Fact that I drove for nearly an hour somewhere, anywhere.

I don't listen to the radio anymore. "The radio" is "podcasts" now anyway. The radio was a Special Treat as I drove 20 minutes to work in the morning, and then 30 minutes back in the evening. The drive—which I don't miss, not for a moment—could be reclaimed somewhat by dripping a bit of information into my brain. Now the radio is gone. It's still there in my phone, entirely forgotten except for the occasional times I'll listen to it while washing dishes.

Basically all of the information I consume now is in text format. Few videos, few audios.

Why?

If I was ever going to waste time at work and watch videos or listen to podcasts, now would be the time, no? I could sit there, two computer screens right in front of me at home, and listen to and watch whatever I want, whenever I want. But I don't. I can't explain it. What I do typically: even during work, while wasting a bit of time, I don't sit around and read either, but when I find an article that I'd like to read I throw it in Instapaper for later instead of reading it on the spot.

My focus is a thing shattered into a million pieces these days—"these days", i.e., the last year—but for some reason I can't even waste time effectively.

...

I thought I was going to bring this post home with some kind of self-understanding, but I'm still confused. On one hand, it doesn't matter much—consuming information or entertainment via one media or the other, so what? On the other hand, the change went the other direction that what I would have expected. Are there any secondary effects? Is that life with less human contact—having words to read and not faces to see or voices to hear—causing some longer term changes?