With Podcasts, Intimacy Is A One-Way Street

Says one of the hosts of a popular NPR roundtable podcast: “No wonder you feel as if you know them; that the sound of their voices comes to fire precisely the same neurons, arouse the same feelings, that the voices of your closest friends do. It’s purely biological, and it’s indistinguishable from intimacy — except for one minor, mundane, trifling detail: It’s unidirectional. You know them, you trust them, you love them, and they have absolutely no idea who you are.”