I prefer podcasts, maybe for the same reason you don't - the low bandwidth. I'm always time-rich and energy poor, and it's a way to distract myself when I'm flaked out not able to do anything else or absorb visual info (or whilst simultaneously playing some mindless game that's not Minesweeper ;-) ). I find reading more than a few lines of text on a screen really hard. Podcasts also feel more intimate, and less demanding.

My current favourite bedtime 'reading' is LeVar Burton Reads podcast.