Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login As I toiled through some phone-based admin on a recent dreary morning, a notification popped up that shook me to my core. A friend appeared to have left a one-minute-long voice note in a 13-member group chat.
What could possibly have happened, I asked myself? What could she have to tell the other 12 of us that demanded our immediate collective aural attention in this way? As I listened, intrigue gave way to indignation. Voice notes are a highly divisive medium of communication – but it seems the haters are losing the battle. iStock Not only had she left a one-minute voice note in a 13-person WhatsApp group but it was directed at – and only concerned – one other person in the chat.
My friend had flagrantly flouted voice note code and yet, with no code explicitly established, I had no way of calling her out. Voice notes are a highly divisive medium of communication. There are those, like me, who enjoy both leaving and (when they are used correctly) listening to them; those who enjoy receiving them but not recording them, or vice versa; and then there are those who detest them and feel very strongly about that.
Innumerable column inches have been devoted to decrying how invasive, self-indulgent and inconsiderate they are. It seems the haters are losing the battle, though. A poll conducted by YouGov for Vox last yea.