Much has been made of the addictive nature of screens and of screen time as a metric of technology overuse. But audio use, too, captures many people’s waking hours, yet it hasn’t been studied nearly as much.

Americans listen to nearly four hours of audio a day, according to Edison Research and Nielsen, and that doesn’t include audiobooks, YouTube rants or ambient noise from the television while you cut up vegetables for dinner. A 2025 Edison report showed that the number of American adults listening to podcasts is at an all-time high, though radio still dominates. For some people, that routine is constant, taking up much of the day.