Source: dribble, by Yuri Kartashev

We are living in a visually saturated world, with 5,000 ads popping at us daily and 400 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute. We know that a picture is worth a thousand words from the years when Instagram was at the height of its power and that video content is king today, as internet video traffic is expected to account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic this year.

But no matter what kind of visual stimuli we favor at a particular time, audio experiences are still part of our lives. Whether it’s music, radio, podcasts, ASMR, voice-controlled games or any other hip audio format, we still enjoy listening as much as watching.

David Kemp of Voicebot called it aural attention economy, which is as real the visual attention economy driven by the ubiquity of mobile screens. However, as voice assistants become a habitual part of our lives, smart speaker user base is growing drastically and hearables experience their rise, brands are looking for ways to monetize the audio trend.

Thus, Spotify has not only redesigned its app and put podcasting front and center but also made several podcasting-specific acquisitions. Google revealed it’s going to add podcast episodes to search results on its platform, including Google Assistant. As for Apple, for the first time in 7 years, its revenues have become more dependent on services and wearables which include AirPods, Watch, HomePod, Beats, and Apple TV.

Why does audio still hold up?

So why are we so drawn to the audio experiences? We addressed this question to psychologists and media experts. According to podcaster Travis Vengroff of John Dossinger Publishing, “Humans have been telling stories orally for thousands of years. The audio medium is comfortable and intimate, allowing listeners to create strong bonds with characters and hosts over time.”

Dr. Tiffany Eurich, a media expert with a Ph.D. in communications also believes that “Audio performances have an enduring value, evidenced by the longevity of radio, the renaissance of podcasting, the growth of the audiobook industry, and the third wave of popularity of audio theatre.”

Looking at it from the brain’s perspective, it’s a good story that gets us hooked. Paul Zak, the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University says:

whether it’s audio or video or text. It’s the same kind of activation in the brain

In their research, Zak and his colleagues discovered that people feel stressed when they experience tension. As a result, their bodies release the hormone and neurotransmitter oxytocin, which is believed to increase empathy. So whenever we listen to the story (read a book, watch a movie or a TV show) we often get immersed in it and may empathize with the characters.

Travis Vengroff also agrees that people tend to form emotional connections with characters on the shows, often in the form of Parasocial Relationships (where the people you’re listening to do not know who you are because you’ve never spoken): “We smile when they smile, we cheer out loud as they announce a grand success, and we feel a deep loss when the fictional characters we’ve grown attached to get fictionally injured or die.”

But why do people still tune in to radio and podcasts at the age of Game of Thrones and Stranger Things? The experts we have asked agree on four main reasons:

Portability

Dr. Tiffany Eurich notes that listening to audio doesn’t require your full, undivided attention, unlike visual forms of media. She adds that “video requires the audience to watch and listen to catch all the nuances, but the audio is designed to be listened to on-the-go, whether driving, running, or doing dishes”, making it the perfect medium for a culture obsessed with multi-tasking.

Travis Vengroff adds that “Your hour-long commute through traffic is now an interstellar journey on VAST Horizon, your gym routine is now a visit into a prohibition-era speakeasy in Bronzeville, and your yard work is now a harrowing tale to the arctic in The White Vault.”

Accessibility

Best things in life come free to us and so are many audio experiences. Podcast and radio host Wizzy Moonchaser believes that people still listen to the radio because it is free: “It’s like that friend that’s always there.”

Podcasts are also often available at little to no cost, and those that do charge their listeners are still way cheaper than any video-streaming services. The same is true for audiobook services, which are usually subscription-based, ASMR skills or voiced controlled games for Alexa.

Imagination

“Audio helps you use your imagination and creates a social experience,” says Wizzy Moonchaser, adding that “as you’re listening to stories, you are visualizing what is being said, but you also have access to the tones and nuances being used within the storytelling.”

Audio, like no other medium, creates the immersive experience: listeners find themselves in the world a story lives in and also contribute their vision to it. Besides audio gives the much-needed rest in the gigabit society: “we’re so bombarded with information every day — most of it visual — that audio creates an opportunity for mental space for creativity to flourish,” says Dr. Tiffany Eurich.

Technology

However, the ubiquity of audio that we see today, could not be possible without the increasing technological advancement. The ability to take an audiobook or podcast anywhere you go with a smartphone, and the syncing of multiple devices for seamlessly picking up where you left off, makes the process of listening easier and more convenient than ever before. Also, with the prominence of Alexa and the latest smartphones, the experience is enhanced even more through these devices that the majority of people have access too.

Old dogs, new tricks

Our audio experiences today are not limited to radio and music: now and then a new format pops up. A few years ago podcasts were a hot trend, last year media were discussing the ethics of ASMR, and today there are voice-controlled games and 8D music.

We owe it to podcasts, that today’s audiobooks and voice-controlled games often have dramatized structure and use sound effects to create the immersive atmosphere and get us hooked.

Content creators expect the number of people who listen to podcasts to grow. As for now 51% of the US population has listened to a podcast, while the number of shows is currently over 750,000.

Travis Vengroff foresees “new creative delivery methods of storytelling, such as Alexa’s interactive ‘Magic Door’ audio game, which functions similarly to a choose your own adventure book.” According to Travis, there will be more shows like You Are Here, where the listeners vote each week on where to take the story. He also mentions a rise in experimental shows like What The Frequency that “bring Salvador Dali’s abstract style to the audio medium”.

The growing popularity of voice assistants — Juniper research expects their number to reach 8 billion by 2023 — will also contribute to the appearance of high-quality audio content: from the aforementioned drama shows to voice-controlled games like the World of Lovecraft and Westworld: the maze.

Shift to audio

Marketers are always on a watch-out for new trends and are one of the first to adopt them, and evolving audio formats are no exception. Tech-driven corporations are usually the first ones to embrace new technologies: the most popular branded podcasts are created by the likes of McDonald’s, Sephora, and eBay.

This shift to audio is a global trend: e.g. China’s audiobook industry is expected to be worth more than $1 billion in the country by next year. To give the industry an even bigger boost, the Chinese search engine Sogou is planning to create artificial intelligence-powered avatars that will read books in the voices of the country’s two most famous authors.

Another example is Russia’s Sberbank, which might also launch a music streaming service. Earlier this month the bank has announced its plans to release a smart speaker with its very own voice assistant.

Spotify’s acquisitions that we’ve mentioned before are high-end podcast production studios, Gimlet Media and Parcast, and podcast hosting platform, Anchor. The company can now make its content and may one day become “ a Netflix for our ears.”

But one of the main reasons why people tune to audio is that our lives become too screen dependent. We’re looking for ways to naturally free our hands (and eyes) and now technology has finally caught up to our need with smart speakers, voice assistant-integrated cars and smart hearables. So, companies behind voice assistants and smart devices will also try to jump in on the trend, by making audio content easier to create and discover.