How I read what they wrote is that instead of mindlessly listening to anything just to listen to something as the default, they prefer to instead be selective if they decide to listen to something.

Sibling comment is correct. What I meant is I don’t listen to music/podcasts by default: when I walk, I walk in silence. I don’t use audio as background noise.

Instead, when I listen to music, it’s usually by sitting down deliberately to exclusively listen to music. The music isn’t idle background noise but rather the point of that activity. I enjoy music a lot more now, I find.

In general I try to have silence where in the past I would have had audio playing in the background. So definitely while walking but also while working (since I’m working from home and don’t need to drown out office noises).