I’m cutting vegetables in my cramped, dark kitchen when my phone vibrates loudly on the counter. It’s a voice note from one of my university friends; the close proximity of student halls may be a thing of the past but, 10 years on and hundreds of miles apart, we’re still a constant presence in each other’s lives.
The two minute audio file she’s sent me (a rambling account of her day) wouldn’t be objectively interesting to a third party outside our friendship; there’s no juicy gossip or scandal being breathlessly dissected in our DMs, but these voice notes, the brief snatches of conversation we have as we juggle our increasingly busy lives, are something I treasure. I’m not alone in that.
Now reaching their 10th birthday (they were initially introduced by WhatsApp in 2013), voice notes have gone from a rarely used novelty to a veritable language in their own right; 7 billion of them are sent on on WhatsApp alone every single day. They’ve become a key feature of dating apps like Hinge and last year a dating app called String even launched based solely on the premise that you could find your perfect match on the basis of their voice alone. Hinge’s voice prompts have become so popular that they’ve reached parody levels, with many of the more outlandish or downright weird responses going viral on social media. When voice notes are held up to crowds of people – either IRL or online – to comment on and listen to, it’s easy to understand why some people ultimately see them as the narcissist‘s communication method of choice, but it also cheapens someone’s potentially sincere and heartfelt attempt to connect with someone. In an increasingly digital world, even with voice notes it’s easy to forget there’s a real person behind the phone number.
And yet, in spite of the danger of exposure, voice notes allow us to connect with one another so much more than texting thesis-like responses. They allow more space for sincerity too; we can convey more emotion with my intonation without cheapening what we’re trying to say with a string of often nonsensical emojis. If I need to let someone down last minute, or offer support or condolences, my voice does a far better job than ‘soz’ and a few crying faces.
The authenticity voicenotes provide partially explains their recent surge in popularity, so many years after their initial debut. Gen Z, we hear time and time again, is a demographic that prizes the authentic above all else. For a generation that has grown up immersed in digital life, it’s unsurprising that forms of deeper connection – especially in communication styles – are preferred,” psychotherapist Eloise Skinner says. “Voice notes enable a degree of autonomy and flexibility – both elements that are becoming key priorities for the younger generation.”
Relying on our own voices, then, is more immediate, more intimate, ultimately more enriching than a text, capturing the emotional nuances involved in speaking, but without the pressure of a full conversation. In a continuously busy, exhausting world, voice notes have emerged as a way to bridge the gap between isolation and the pressure to be always connected, allowing us to reach out to each other on our own terms and in our own time. They’re also pleasantly human; we can hear our conversational partners and their lexical tics, their coughs, their swallows – in some cases we can almost hear the cogs turning in their brain as they formulate their response.
Voice notes — particularly in the age of the viral dating app screen record — also reveal a level of trust and dedication, especially for women. They foster a sense of closeness. Their popularity can perhaps be explained by our collective realisation that we can’t sustain fulfilling relationships through just text alone: it’s why we reach a certain level of frustration when we’re texting someone on a dating app and there’s no transition to anything beyond words on a screen.
The chasm between what is written and what could be implied often means we instil our own sense of meaning onto texts. It can allow for very innocuous messages to be misconstrued. Gretchen McCulloch, Canadian linguist and author of Because internet, dedicates an entire chapter of her book to “typographical tone of voice”, which has emerged as a generational language within itself (TL;DR: if you use a full stop, a Zoomer or millennial will think it’s rude, a boomer or Gen Xer might not infer the same tone). Our need for plain-speaking, clear understanding in a world loaded in meaning and subtext and fake news only grows as time passes, which explains why the rise of the voicenote appears almost generational; one third of Generation Z prefer voicenotes to texts compared to just 5% of boomers.
Those same Zoomers and millennials have led the charge in re-contextualising unscheduled phone calls as unwanted, abrupt and even rude. Despite being avid makers of voice notes, one study finds as many as 80% of Generation Z and Millennials get apprehension anxiety before making or answer a call, the study claiming they’re “stressful, time-consuming and entitled”. Although it might be attributed to ‘snowflake ideology’, there’s a logic to this: a phone call flat out demands you drop everything to talk immediately. Voicenotes allow people to share the richness that comes with voice communication without the pressure of inconvenience. We can play back each note for clearer understanding, we can make each point concisely, we can reply thoughtfully and have more meaningful conversations without being cut off on a phone call we didn’t plan or didn’t want.
But it’s more than just an issue of convenience — for young women, voice notes can also be a source of “redistribution of power”, at least according to Dr Richard Courtney, a sociologist at University of East London. According to Dr Courtney, it’s a space where we can be more assertive with our voice, to “set the standard and tone of a conversation”.
“Sending a voice note is a way for people to exert their power in a way that’s easier than texting,” he says.
Dr Courtney attributes the popularity of voice notes amongst younger generations not to anxiety or ‘snowflake’ behaviour but actually to an increased level of considerateness. Although Generation Z is statistically the more anxious age group, they also report being the most self-aware when it comes to mental health; it makes sense, then, that they’d be more mindful than their predecessors in how they communicate: “The younger generations, on the whole, are kinder and more considerate to their conversational partners as they’re more conscious about how their words may be interpreted,” he explains. “A phone call can lead to a power asymmetry. But a voice note allows for that space where your voice can be heard unimpeded. It’s a way young people can exert their voice and presence on their own terms.”
“When women communicate, they tend to weave memories and emotions to the topic at hand to build a kinship with whoever they’re speaking with.”
The way voice notes readdress power dynamics may explain why it’s mostly my female friends that leave me voice notes: it’s a medium for them to speak in the same way men do – unfiltered and uninterrupted. Women on the whole send more voice notes than men – 53% compared to 43%. It may seem ironic that it’s women choosing to send little, unfiltered podcasts to their friends when it’s men who, famously, ‘prefer to start podcasts instead of going to therapy’ – but it’s the purpose of the voice notes in which they differ.
Linguistics studies find that men favour a ‘report’ style in conversation (meaning they use speech that contains facts, data and aims to solve problems, as well as to dominate or grandstand). Women, however, use more of a ‘rapport’ style that aims toward relationship-building and sharing personal information. When women communicate, they tend to weave memories and emotions to the topic at hand to build a kinship with whoever they’re speaking with. Conversations and stories are more engaging if we can identify with and hear the voice of the person telling them, with voice notes serving as the ideal vessel for this sort of conversational style. It’s almost the antithesis to those who demonise voice notes as narcissistic, when it so clearly complements the style of conversation that endeavours to build an affinity with others.
For young women in particular then, voice notes are a space not just for connection but for storytelling. Voice notes give us the space to be more expressive, more personal and more creative. The messages on my phone are important to me, but it’s always the voice notes I find myself returning to when I’m sad or lonely or missing someone. They’re among my favourite keepsakes, a thread delicately woven into the patchwork of my friendships. Be they short, sharp messages confirming where we’re going for dinner, or long soliloquies about how shit your work day was, I’m always ready to dive into my own personal podcast universe. Go ahead. I’m listening.