The beauty of audio messages is that they are actually not like texts at all.ĭuring the pandemic, when everything became literally and spiritually remote, voice notes brought humanity into our conversation. They lack the expansive brevity of an emoji, yet give us tone, tangents, the rasp of a voice first thing in the morning. Parents in my Brooklyn neighbourhood record them while pushing prams, pressing rice crackers into toddler palms.Ī voice note requires just one hand and no eyes for the busy and overburdened. Yet there is more scope for storytelling when you don’t have to structure a perfect narrative arc with your thumbs. They can quickly resemble podcasts in their duration.Īt first, I resented the self-indulgence, the lack of discipline. ![]() They are inappropriate for dinner plans or sharing WiFi passwords. There is an etiquette to voice texts, though not everyone has mastered the rules. ![]() In March, WhatsApp said its two billion users sent seven billion voice messages a day, 7 per cent of all messages sent on the app. Since their launch in 2013, voice messages have steadily gained momentum. Now when I walk to the shop, I can be heard building tension in a dramatic retelling of a horrendous date directly into my phone. Yet like most new things I initially hate because they seem unnecessary, when really they are just different, I’m a convert. “There’s an arrogance to them,” a friend said. They make demands on your time and attention in a way a text message - readable anywhere, scannable in seconds - does not. If you simply press play, anyone within earshot will hear. While leaving a voice note is as simple as tapping the microphone where you’d normally type with the keyboard into WhatsApp or iMessage, listening to them can be awkward. “People who send voice notes are poison,” one thinkpiece argued. Perhaps the most transformational innovation in telecoms since texting, they are also the most controversial, both reviled and loved. ![]() I stop everything and pick apart my morass of tangled headphone cords to listen. Nothing makes me more acutely aware of the pain of an open-plan office than receiving a voice note.
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