I don't listen to podcasts and couldn't make one, because without non-verbal cues from my audience I can't adjust my speech to keep them engaged. It's like wit

I don't listen to podcasts and couldn't make one, because without non-verbal cues from my audience I can't adjust my speech to keep them engaged. It's like with this vampire who is familiar with mobile phones, but finds it weird that anyone would want to have a conversation without registering the other person's scent and feeling their heartbeat. I see why people listen at 3x - too many podacsters seem to be enamoured with their own voice to a point where they add irrelevant stuff like my vampire bit here. But while you can skip this in text, it's not easy to do when listening. I don't think that on average they actually lose anything because of that, since the conversation is one-sided anyway. They wouldn't have retained more had they listened to it at 1x speed. As for trying to consume as much literature as possible and feeling inadequate: this is a problem as old as printed press, for which there is no real solution aside from managing expectations.