What’s the deal with voice notes?

The halfway house between texting and calling

You can tell I’ve been stuck inside the house for too long when it gets to the point I write a whole article about voice notes. But, during this time when we can’t see our loved ones in person and we have a lot to catch up on, the voice note has seemed like the perfect tool for staying in touch. At least, that’s what I thought initially…so why do I sometimes feel a little bit peeved trying to upkeep a voice note conversation? Well, I’m going to try figure that out in this article.

The rise of the voice note

Before the pandemic I’d always been confused when I saw someone talking into their phone on my morning commute (but don’t get me wrong it’s always fun to listen). I might’ve shot them a side eye before I’d had my coffee, but voice noting felt like more of a rarity back then and it was unusual to see. I don’t remember my first voice note. I guess it would be kind of weird if I did. But what I do know is once I started I was hooked. I was voice noting on the overground, the bus, the park (you name it, i’ve voice noted there). And it’s obviously not just me; voice noting is pretty popular now, with Whatsapp racking up over 300M monthly users. Most social media’s are predominantly focused on texting and other ways of communication that avoid speech: look at facebook, instagram, snapchat etc. That’s why the rise of the voice note is pretty interesting — it almost feels like maybe we’re starting to go backward towards good old verbal communication.

So why might this be? If i think about when I choose to use a voice note, it’s usually when I have so much to say I don’t feel I can be bothered to type it out via message. It could also be suggested it brings a bit of emotion behind conversation that you can’t quite convey with texting. The Evening standard states:

“Voice notes can vivify digital communications, reclaiming an intimacy that is usually lost online”

British GQ even wrote an article about a rise in voice note dating. I guess the series Love is Blind is kind of exactly that. Now, voice note dating might sound a bit crazy if we were told this 2 years ago, but when you’re living through a pandemic it kinda makes sense. I’d even go as far to say it’s pretty smart — I think we can all relate to building up a mental picture of someone and then their voice totally stumps you. It may well be that the pandemic has caused an overall rise in voice notes, due to the fact that when we’re talking to our friends now or getting to know someone new, we probably have a lot to catch up on or need to convey our personality. The advantage of voice notes is that you don’t have to fully commit to a phonecall or videocall to get across what you need to say — you can just reel off the voice notes between WFH and binging Netflix.

Is it just me or…

After reading up on the topic, I got a bit curious and decided to find out how some of my family, friends and colleagues felt about voice notes. What I found kind of confirmed the thoughts and feelings I had about voice notes. Of 36 survey respondents, 60% used voice notes sometimes or frequently - so they’re evidently quite a common form of communication now. And, the results point to a correlation between the pandemic and an uptake in voice note usage. 36% of those surveyed had started using voice notes in the last year, and 60% have used voice notes more since the pandemic. The reasoning for using a voice note seems to be mostly in the scenario where you have a lot to say, and you can’t be bothered to type this out in a text message. Some people also note using them to add more of a ‘personal’ touch. So, here’s the thing: people seem to use a voice note a fair bit, but the voice note was the lowest ranked preference of communication in the survey. The results of communication type preference was;
1. Texting

2. Phone call

3. Video call/facetime

4. Voice note

The problem

So what’s going on here? Why would a voice note be ranked bottom? I have to say I was quite surprised at the results, especially seeing that video calls came above the effortless voice note. I mean…come on, you have to look presentable for a video call. What is it about voice noting that’s just not quite doing it? I recently had a conversation with an old friend, and we had so much to say, that we were sending multiple voice notes a couple minutes long. It got to the point where I could just not keep up, and I wanted to chuck my phone far away and go for my daily walk.
Here’s what I’ve come to realise;

Voice notes are great for the person sending them, but not for the person receiving.

That’s right guys — voice noting is actually the ultimate selfish communication medium. We use voice notes so that we can convey a lot of information, but we perhaps don’t want to fully commit to a phonecall or a video call out of laziness. Social media and technology has steered us away from the commitment of having a proper, in the moment mutual conversation with someone. The thought of ringing a friend to catch up can sometimes feel abit daunting. Maybe it would be easier to just ping them a voice note instead so you can keep doing your business. But what this means for the receiver, is they have to listen to and retain what is usually a lot of information. This is too much cognitive load for our brains to handle and so we simply can’t remember all of the information in order to respond accordingly. Our short term memory is capable of remembering up to 7 words at a time before we start making mistakes, or 3 or 4 bits of information. So when you apply that knowledge to lengthly voice notes and the added pressure of replying whilst remembering, you can see how it becomes a frustrating experience.

If you think about it, voice notes completely break up the natural flow of conversation. I mean, imagine an actual conversation with someone where they speak for 3 minutes about an awkward work situation that just happened, missing their ex, how they really need to shave their legs, their latest lockdown tracksuit purchase - all without giving you a chance to respond to each point. There’s no way you’re gonna remember to respond to everything, especially as you also have to concentrate on replying. By the time you’ve replied to the point about the work situation, there’s the inevitable ‘uhhh i can’t remember what else you said’. And you just know she’s going to want your advice on that ex of hers, so it’s a lose lose situation. All other methods of communication in the ranking (text, phone call, video call) emulate a mutually flowing and reactive way of communicating.

The voice note as the next MySpace

So, will we see voice noting gradually fade out when life starts to return to normality? Time will tell. But next time you’re thinking of sending your best mate a 3 minute voice note covering 5 different topics, maybe think twice about whether you want to inflict them with making bullets on what you said. Maybe we need to take a leaf out of our parents books and settle for a good old phone call. Let me know what you think about voice notes in the comments!