I am a voice note person (sorry not sorry)
Nearly every morning, I record a "podcast" (aka. long meandering voice note) for a dear friend of mine.
I'll be walking my dog before I start work, slowly rambling through the neighbourhood while babbling into my phone. I'll share whatever thoughts, stories and updates are on my mind, interspersed with interjections about the delicious scent of the bakery I'm walking past or the cute cat I just saw.
I'll often interrupt myself to tell my dog not to eat some mysterious scraps on the ground, or to say a quick hello to a neighbour. Sometimes I'll get silly and improvise a fake radio show, or do different voices and characters.
My friend does the same, and I listen to her voice messages as part of my daily routine. They really are a highlight of my day.
Another very dear friend in Australia sent me a 20 minute long(!) voice message the other day. It was a complex and detailed update on everything happening in her career and relationship since we'd last spoke. She'd sent a sheepish apology about how long the message was, saying I didn't have to listen to it if I didn't want to.
Uh, are you kidding? Fuck yeah I want to listen to that! I carved out time this morning to soak it in to it during my morning walk, and I plan on sending a voice note update in reply later on today.
I'm aware that a lot of people HATE voice messages. I've heard them described as annoying, rambling, self-indulgent, etc. I can't relate to that. I LOVE voice messages.
It's not just that recording audio is much easier than typing while walking the dog (and I can look where I'm going so I'm much less likely to trip and fall.) It's also that voice notes carry so much more emotional nuance and inflection than text updates.
When I receive a voice message from a friend, it's like they recorded a bespoke podcast just for me about the things that are important to them. I get to hear the excitement, bemusement, frustration or angst in their voice and understand them more deeply.
I care about my friends and I enjoy hearing about the things they are experiencing and thinking - so why WOULDN'T I love listening to them talk about those things?
Rambling, tangents, silly jokes and "thinking out loud" - those things don't come through in a carefully composed text message. Those are the things that make it feel like I really know someone and understand how their brain works.
Voice messages also make it a lot easier to pick up on paralinguistic clues that are lost in written communication, so you can better understand humour, sarcasm and complex emotions.
Voice notes have the intimacy of a phone call, but they are asynchronous so you can listen and respond whenever you have the chance. Sometimes it takes me days to respond - and that's okay!
Of course, I only send voice notes with friends who ALSO LIKE voice notes. (You find out pretty soon who those friends are.) But, I will say that I tend to communicate more regularly and more intimately with my voice note friends, just because of how easy-to-send and information rich this mode of communication is.
What are your thoughts? Are you a voice note person? Leave me a message in the guestbook and let me know what you think.