Gen Z: Did you listen to the voice note I sent you about work today?
Boomer: It was 15 minutes long.
And?
And I have more pressing things to do than listen to you rant about the office running out of oat milk.
*Sighs* Well, how should I keep you updated with my goings-on?
A text message? Remember those: short, typed, easy to skim?
Yuck. According to a new Talkmobile survey, Gen Zs send an average of 23 voice notes a week.
And the same survey found 80 per cent of recipients don’t bother listening to the whole thing. Whereas I can check when the grandkids have read my text. Two blue ticks.
It takes you 30 minutes to type three lines. Even among us speedy typers, 48 per cent say sending voice notes ‘saves time’ compared to texting.
Saves your time, perhaps. Meanwhile I’m stuck holding the speaker to my ear like a hostage negotiator.
They’re VNs, not ransom demands.
Why are you abbreviating voice notes? It’s already only two syllables!
FR*, you’re so stuffy sometimes. Probs why only 18 per cent of you Boomers even use voice notes.
Or maybe because, like The Guardian says, they’re an example of ‘generally rising levels of narcissism’. says, they’re an example of ‘generally rising levels of narcissism’.
What’s narcissistic about being emotionally available via audio?
‘Apart from the sheer uninvited trespass on one’s time,’ The Guardian states, there’s a ‘very large gap’ between how amusing the sender thinks their voice note is, and the reality of listening to it.
Well, my VNs are fire. Probs cos I follow the Washington Post’s ‘definitive rules of sending’.
Let me guess: speak for at least five minutes before getting to the point?
Actually, each story should be a ‘succinct voice note that lasts two or three minutes with maybe a quick follow-up if any key details are missing’.
And how am I meant to remember which bits need a reply after three minutes of directionless drawl?
The Washington Post says receivers should ‘take notes on key points as you’re listening’.
So I’m meant to have my jotter and pen ready? Feels less like a catch-up and more like a lecture.
It’s about connection! According to Time magazine, sending a VN is a ‘small act of love’ because you get ‘paralinguistic cues’ a text wouldn’t provide.
You also get sensory overload. Half the time I can barely hear you over your jangling car keys or blaring supermarket self-service checkouts in the background.
Time says that’s part of the fun. You hear ‘not just [your] loved ones, but the soundtrack of their lives playing in the background’.
And is it part of the fun for everyone in Tesco to overhear you blabbering on at top volume about everything from your dating life to your bowel habits?
You’re just jel because you find them impossible to record. The first ten seconds are just you going: ‘Is it on? Hello?’
At least I’m not as bad as my friend Helen when she attempted a VN.
Go on…
She recorded an entire two-minute spiel about her friend’s tacky dinner party.
Saying?
The drinks were dreadful, the other guests annoying and the ‘homemade’ lasagne was definitely a M&S job.
I’m not liking where this is going…
She sent it, whacked on the TV and an hour later, got a sinking feeling that she’d sent it to the friend herself.
Pls say she hadn’t.
She had. And Helen had a reply from the woman in question: ‘I’ve just listened to your voice note and I don’t think this friendship can continue.’
I’m screaming. The worst mistake I saw was on TikTok…
Not another wrong recipient. I thought you lot were tech-savvy?
No, no. On a post with millions of likes, someone wrote they’d sent a voice note to a guy on Hinge…
The dating app?
You’re learning! Anyway, to cut a long story short: ‘I listened back and realised it caught me farting right at the end of it.’
Less voice note, more bum note.
You see? They provide bottomless comedy value.
Full of hot air, more like.
*FR = for real
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