From emails to ‘breaking news’ alerts to texts, our phones come under a bombardment of notifications these days. But there’s one kind that always brightens my day – the one that tells me that a friend has sent me a voice note.
This, however, seems to make me unusual. ‘I don’t want to hear your mini-podcast,’ complains Emma Brockes in the Guardian; voice notes are ‘self-indulgent’, sniffs Anniki Sommerville in the i Paper; and the Independent’s Lucie Tobin denounces them as ‘rude’ and ‘invasive’. In the latest issue of The Spectator, Mary Killen advises a correspondent who’s had enough of them to update their WhatsApp profile ‘to clarify their tastes… “please do not leave voice notes”’.
But Mary does acknowledge, at least, that ‘Voice notes are like Marmite’ – you love them or you hate them. Well, I love them. I’ve gone off phone calls and I scowl with disgust when my phone rings, particularly if it’s displaying an unfamiliar or unavailable number. A ringing phone makes me feel like I’m about to be put on the spot, so unsolicited phone calls can feel an invasive and almost aggressive move.
Text messages are a bit less objectionable but they can be impersonal, and it’s often hard to gauge someone’s tone from a text. Also, I’m bored of typing into a phone and staring at its small screen, so you won’t get the best out of me if that’s how you want me to chat.
So if phone calls are off the table and texts are too problematic, how should we keep in touch with friends? Enter the voice note – the marvellous, meandering monologues that are the most intimate method of communication with someone not physically present. They might not work for brief, functional messages about shopping lists or meet-up times, but for exchanges of ideas, funny stories or emotional monologues – the good stuff – they are just the ticket.
People complain that they’re like mini-podcasts, to which I say: what sort of person doesn’t want to hear a mini-podcast from their friends? Why would you be happy to listen to an actual podcast made by strangers, complete with ad breaks and annoying sponsorship plugs, but roll your eyes at the prospect of a short recording from someone you love?
No other form of remote communication can compete with voice notes. Unlike phone calls I can listen to them when I want to, and unlike texts, I can hear the tone of my friends’ voices, so I join them in their joy, despair or amusement. In a voice note, funny anecdotes are funnier, angry vents are more gloriously furious and, whatever the mood, the conversation is more intimate.
In a voice note, funny anecdotes are funnier, angry vents are more gloriously furious and the conversation is more intimate
When you listen to a voice note you’re not having to show you are listening by saying ‘Mmmm’ or ‘Yes’ like you do during phone calls, and you don’t feel under pressure to respond immediately. This means you can actually listen, rather than having to perform at listening or prepare your reply.
I can take my time to consider my responses and there’s a real delight to speaking for so long without interruption, which makes for deeper, more considered exchanges. Sometimes it’s nice to listen more than once to an important message, to get a better understanding of it. It’s no coincidence that my conversations with voice note friends go deeper than those with friends who I only chat with through texts or phone calls.
I also love the background noise you get. I smile when I hear the incidental sounds like their cat meowing, their kid interrupting or their doorbell going, because it’s like a radio play but starring a real person I care about. And I then record my response while I’m doing something else, rather than squeezing in hurried, curt texts between tasks and spending even more time staring at a screen.
Thanks to voice notes, I feel closer than ever to my friends who live a long way away. Yes, they go on a bit sometimes, but I love hearing my friends in all their idiosyncratic, rambling and entertaining glory. In fact, I suspect that if you don’t like voice notes, then maybe you don’t really like your friends.
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