15 hours ago
4
Name: Voice notes.
Age: About 14.
Appearance: Everywhere, all at once.
I think you’ll find people have been leaving each other messages for decades. That’s voicemail. This is different.
How is it different? A voicemail is a response to someone not answering their phone; essentially a plea for you to call them back.
I’m never going to call them back. Exactly. A voice note, on the other hand, is an audio recording you post to someone in lieu of a text message.
It doesn’t sound that different. Here’s the main difference: voicemail is dead, voice notes are hugely popular.
Really? And also hugely unpopular.
Quite a paradox you’ve set up. In a survey earlier this year for Sky Mobile, 73% of respondents said they loved recording voice notes, while a new poll suggests that Britons now send an average of 58 hours’ worth of voice notes each per year.
Sounds like the best loved form of communication ever devised. Except people hate getting them – 62% of recipients admit to suffering from “voice note fatigue”.
Why? The new poll found people typically send six voice notes every day, each lasting about 95 seconds.
Ninety five seconds? That’s a bit of an imposition on the listener, isn’t it? One in 20 respondents said they had received a voice note longer than 10 minutes.
That’s not a voice note; that’s an audition monologue. There does seem to be something about the medium that encourages prolixity.
Perhaps there’s no established etiquette yet. According to Debrett’s, the authority on etiquette, voice notes should be under two minutes. “Think about what you’re going to say before you press ‘record’ and stick to your subject.”
Funny, I don’t even know how to send a voice note. Just press the little microphone button to the right of the text window.
I didn’t say I wanted to know how. It’s a bit of a gen Z thing – voice notes are said to be a symptom of that generation’s rising narcissism and general fear of interaction.
Huh, typical. The poll was commissioned by Heineken as part of a campaign aimed at getting people to swap the exchange of voice notes with in-person, one-to-one communication.
Whoa, let’s not be too hasty. Most people, after all, are seeking some kind of human connection.
Speak for yourself. I just want to be left alone. What’s in it for Heineken? Real life meetings provide opportunities for people to drink beer.
Do say: “Just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you, while simultaneously not wishing to speak to you.”
Don’t say: “Chapter 3, in which I find myself on a crowded platform awaiting the 17.54 train to Derby, currently expected at 18.03. Oh, look – a crow.”
