In protection of the voice message

Over the previous few months of peak TV, the voice message has emerged as one in every of my favourite methods to speak about what I’m watching. I’ll end this week’s episode of Andor, mute the present’s credit, and instantly begin recording a voice message of my ideas to ship to a pal. 

The major motive we use voice messages (or voice notes, relying on the place you’re on the planet) is their asynchronicity — we don’t need to each be free on the similar time to speak. Sometimes, he’s managed to look at the episode hours and even days earlier than me and has already despatched a message for me to take heed to, whereas different instances, I’ll be the primary one to share my ideas. But each week, the format is identical. The recording begins with a spoiler warning, after which we share what we like, what we dislike, and the place we predict the present goes sooner or later. 

Yes, the messages are rambly. Yes, they’re stuffed with half-formed ideas and tangents. And sure, we’re undoubtedly utilizing them as a result of we will’t be bothered to sort out every part we need to share. But that’s the purpose. Each recording accommodates an unfiltered first impression of an hour of TV, the place you may hear somebody understanding how they really feel about an episode in actual time. They supply a lot of the immediacy and intimacy of a cellphone name with out having to be accessible on the similar time.

I’m not alone in my love for voice messages. WhatsApp, the preferred messaging app on the planet, reported earlier this yr that its customers send 7 billion (with a b) voice notes every day. That’s lots of people sharing their scorching Andor takes. 

And but, virtually as in style as voice messages themselves are articles about how terrible they supposedly are. In 2018, TNW called them “the most poisonous piece of audio that has ever occupied megabytes on my phone,” and a yr later, HuffPost said they’re merely “terrible.” A author with The Guardian recently shared an embarrassing story about making an attempt to flirt with a crush over voice messages earlier than questioning if it’s “self-indulgent” to suppose that “people care to listen to you talking for a long time — indeed, any length of time — without interruption.” 

But the extra I drill down into any “I hate voice messages” piece, the extra I’m satisfied that individuals’s complaints aren’t really about voice messages in any respect. Take this part from a recent article in Metro, which referred to as voice messages “rude, arrogant and a waste of everyone’s time:”

I had a colleague who would go away 4, five-minute-long voice notes informing me of all his views on how the business was working, what I wanted to do, what he needed to do, and why everybody else was fallacious.

He’d ship me voice-notes at weekends and whereas I used to be on vacation, so, in his thoughts not less than, he had stored me up to date with what was occurring.

Work messages? Containing motion factors? Sent over the weekend and when you’re on vacation? My pal, these aren’t dangerous voice message issues. These are dangerous colleague issues.

There are good and dangerous methods to make use of any type of communication, an (usually unwritten) etiquette that performs to a medium’s strengths and avoids its weaknesses. There are work conferences that would have been emails, emails that would have been Slack messages, and Slack conversations that have been in all probability vital sufficient to get on a Zoom name for.

Even when you choose a medium, there are greatest practices. Specific directions in a piece e mail are sometimes damaged out into bullet factors relatively than buried in a wall of textual content. Some WhatsApp messages work higher as one lengthy message; others are simpler to learn and reply to once they’re damaged up. 

I utterly agree that there are some horrible voice message customers on the market, however it’s nothing that’s distinctive to them. Burying vital info three minutes right into a rambly recording is a recipe for that info to be forgotten. Discussing what your cat eats for breakfast was going to be boring whatever the medium you used to ship it. And if The Guardian thinks that embarrassing your self whereas speaking to a crush is an issue unique to voice notes, then I’ve quite a few textual content messages that counsel in any other case.

In an effort to rehabilitate the common-or-garden voice messages, right here’s a primary stab at some greatest practices:

1. Voice messages mustn’t include vital dates, instances, or particulars about logistics that somebody may have to check with later.
2. They shouldn’t be used to ship info that’s time essential. Having to discover a spare second to take heed to a message once you’re busy is a ache. The good thing about voice messages is their asynchronicity — don’t destroy it.
3. Voice messages are, by their very nature, extra intimate than a textual content message and aren’t perfect for speaking to strangers. The exception is once you’re flirting with a crush, by which case the intimacy is form of the purpose.
4. Consider listening again to a voice message earlier than you ship it. This one could be extra contentious, given how many individuals hate the sound of their very own voice, however I believe it helps with this subsequent level.
5. Don’t be a bore. Just since you can talk a thought over the course of a five-minute message doesn’t imply you need to. Personally, I believe two to a few minutes is a candy spot, however your mileage could range.

Address these pitfalls, and voice messages are as wealthy a communication medium as another. At their greatest, they provide the size of a written letter combined with the intimacy of a cellphone name and the immediacy of an immediate message. I really like voice messages. I really like the familiarity of listening to somebody’s voice, the precision with which you’ll be able to present the feelings behind your phrases with out having to suppose too onerous about punctuation. But most of all, I really like their effortlessness as a result of speaking with family and friends on a whim is at all times higher than not speaking in any respect.