My zoomer friends are always sending me voice notes. Wtf is wrong with the youth. Text only please, ty.
I could see the appeal of voice notes - still get to hear the person's voice at your leisure.
But I could be shopping, driving, masturbating, you could never know a good time to call and most things could just be text - especially if it has any information I dont think I could remember but might want to know later
For real. A voice note means I'll wait for half a day before I'll have a chance to listen without annoying someone, with a 50% chance of me accidentally clicking on the notification and forgetting it's there. It's the worst of both worlds: not as instant as a call and not as easy as text.
It moves the burden into the receiver
Instead of having to type out a message, you can just blab
Now the receiver has the burden on having to actively listen to the message, maybe finding a situation where it's possible and take the time to listen to it in the speed of the sender instead of being able to read it quickly
TBH some people are terrible about responding to messages or emails (at least when they're messaging/emailing me). I do hate phone calls, but they do somewhat force people to pay attention until you actually finish talking about whatever topic is at hand - and if they don't, it's much more immediately obvious that they aren't interested.
Ok but messages and emails are so you can get to it when you have time.
An unscheduled call is demanding someone's time without asking. Its rude.
Yeah, but the issue is that some people don't use their (and my) time well. e.g. they outright stop responding for no apparent reason and weeks later pretend that nothing happened, or drag the conversation out by leaving out many of the important points of information in their replies, being unclear or misunderstanding what you wrote to them etc.
And calls don't need to be unscheduled.
I call when I need something urgent: Medical Emergency, 2FA when I'm editing the family plan over the phone or in person, I'm in a crisis etc.
When its not urgent, I send a text. I'm a younger person and dont understand the thing around phone calls if its important.
So like I am trying to understand why we are this way. When we grew up, adults used home phones, and if we wanted to call our friends we'd have to talk to an adult on the other end before they'd let us, and adults in general are pretty scary, with stranger danger and everything. And anyway, you could just use AIM. So when cell phones came out we all texted.
But when Boomers and Gen X were growing up, they didn't have AIM so they had to adapt to the phone at a young age out of necessity, so they can deal with it better than we can.
Does that make sense?
Its simpler than that. Texting is asynchronous you always know the person will be able to respond without having to coordinate availability with you.
Its just a straight up more polite acknowledgement that the other person's time is valuable abd you dont have a right to it.
I mean, yeah? But also some people have the job to answer your call, like at doctor's offices. So it should not cause anxiety to call them, yet it does.
And sometimes having a conversation via voice (or even better, face to face) is faster than a text exchange, but still, we're not used to it.
Also if your number isn’t in my phone and I can’t find it with a google search and you don’t leave a message I’m gunna assume that it wasn’t important and never engage with it. It has the same energy as “call me” like, you’re the one that wants to talk, dude!
Definitely needs an "are you my mom" branch.
Still ends in the same place though right?
I live in another country from most of my friends and video calls frankly feel too much like a performance. A phone call is the highest emotional bandwidth way to catch up and feel close.
Even though we prefer calls, we still text ahead and make sure it's a good time.
i am a millenial. two of my gen x friends just call me for no reason sometimes. i don't understand why. i always think something is wrong and answer the phone in a panic to make sure they are okay.
As a former draftsman, the unnecessary kinks in those arrows makes my eye twitch.
