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Original poster

WhatsApp voice notes / voice messages

74 replies

Unicornsaregreat · 22/04/2023 11:35

I have a couple of new(ish) friends & we communicate mainly via WhatsApp voice messages. I really like hearing their voices and a bit of banter. We keep the messages short but it really cheers me up to get their messages and I find it a nice way to communicate. (They do use written messages if they are just saying “yes, see you there” etc)

I’ve tried using voice notes with a couple of other friends and they just replied with a short written message. Fair enough. So I probably won’t try it again.

Then another friend was saying she finds voice notes awful, she absolutely hates them.

What’s your view on communicating via voice notes?

OP posts:

thispostisaboutyou · 22/04/2023 13:35

I hate it. I'm not always in a position to listen to them. I do have a friend who loves them though- she has loads from her sister who sadly died

paulinesmithson · 22/04/2023 13:36

i love it

Bearpawk · 22/04/2023 13:39

I hate them

I feel self conscious recoding my own voice
if I'm somewhere noisy/ at work I can't listen to a voice note as easily as I can read a message

ThisNameIsNotAvailable · 22/04/2023 13:40

SoozyWoozy5 · 22/04/2023 13:26

Hate them!! Only have one friend who uses them and I always ignore them! self-indulgent monotone!

This!!!

namelessfornow · 22/04/2023 13:42

Hate them, but I only have a couple of friends who use them often.
Most of the time, unless I already know it's going to be about something important, I just don't listen to them...

lidlbrownjug · 22/04/2023 13:45

I hate them. If you're going to do a voice note can't you just call?

Mañanarama · 22/04/2023 14:17

😂

Yayasisterhood · 22/04/2023 14:28

Love them. Love to hear about my friend’s lives in much more detail than they would ever write. Love to hear them laughing when they’re telling me something funny. Love to hear them talk about things in a way they might not if I was in person.

I only use with my close friends and send a content warning if it’s to someone I haven’t spoke. To recently e.g. “this a voice note about a song that reminded me of you” or whatever.

runningonberocca · 22/04/2023 15:14

I hate them too - especially the ones that seem to go on for ages, usually about themselves. Something very narcissistic about them

Augustone · 22/04/2023 15:17

Hate hate hate them. Despite asking DH to send me a typed message because I can't listen to him ramble on when at work or travelling he still does them.
Now strategically 'forgetting'to check them to see if that sends a stong enough hint....

HappyMe6 · 22/04/2023 15:18

Love voice notes, send them quite a lot, most of my friends do too. Although none of my family do. And nor does my husband

CreationNat1on · 22/04/2023 15:20

Yayasisterhood · 22/04/2023 14:28

I only use with my close friends and send a content warning if it’s to someone I haven’t spoke. To recently e.g. “this a voice note about a song that reminded me of you” or whatever.

I also 😍😍😍 love them...... What a bag of negative whinge bags on here!!!

You can convey a lot more info and with a little intonation, they are friendly and warm, I think and faster, and easier on the eyes, not forced to endlessly write and read texts.

I write/read for about hours a day in work, I m so suck of it.

I love anything that gives my eyes a break, I love podcasts too.

peachespeachespeaches · 22/04/2023 16:33

I absolutely hate them. They're intrusive, I have to find somewhere that I can listen to them rather than reading on the go. I have to remember the contents of they're long waffle so that I can reply to it rather than just referring back to something written. And to make things worse people tend to record them when they're driving or walking and they add in narratives of what they're doing "oh he's just cut me up on the roundabout the twat/there's some lovely cute dogs around today/oh hang on let me just pay for this coffee" etc.

They're just people recording their own tiny podcasts and forcing you to either listen to them or have NO IDEA what they've said to you.

Just fuck offff.

Original poster

Unicornsaregreat · 22/04/2023 16:35

@CreationNat1on @Yayasisterhood I feel like you.

If someone doesn’t want to hear my voice, and hear about my life, are they even my friend?!

(obviously I appreciate people don’t want to listen to a half hour monologue of me droning on about myself, but I love hearing 2 minute snippets about my friends lives)

OP posts:

PinkFootstool · 22/04/2023 16:43

CreationNat1on · 22/04/2023 15:20

I also 😍😍😍 love them...... What a bag of negative whinge bags on here!!!

You can convey a lot more info and with a little intonation, they are friendly and warm, I think and faster, and easier on the eyes, not forced to endlessly write and read texts.

I write/read for about hours a day in work, I m so suck of it.

I love anything that gives my eyes a break, I love podcasts too.

Show quote history

So, you absolutely love to monologue AT people?

I'm sure you love it, but it's not about you, it's about the recipient. Hopefully they like these messages as much as you, otherwise it's an imposition. You'll know what they like, as they'll generally respond to you in kind. If they are writing back to you, they don't love it as much as you think....

PinkBuffalo · 22/04/2023 16:45

BearSoFair · 22/04/2023 11:46

Hate them. But I also hate calls, in an ideal world I'd keep all my non-face-to-face communication text based!

Same!
I never listen to them but luckily my friends understand this

Rainydaysgetmedown · 22/04/2023 16:50

Can’t stand them and don’t even listen to them if I get them, more than happy to chat on the phone but no interest having to find a time and place listen to something random. Just call me if you don’t want to text

sanityisamyth · 22/04/2023 16:51

They massively annoy me. If you can't type it, dictate it so it can type for you and send it

Andywarholswig · 22/04/2023 16:52

I hate them - I find them really rude and intrusive

BertieBotts · 22/04/2023 17:09

I do want to hear your voice and hear about your life. But I want to be able to respond immediately, in real time! Not have to listen to a predetermined chunk, then reply, then by the time you reply to me I've forgotten what we both said previously so I have to listen again (including to my own voice, cringe)

I really find audio format difficult for things that I want to keep track of. Maybe other people don't and that's why they prefer them? It's like when you google how to do something and up pop a load of youtube tutorials when I don't want a video, I want a text based list of instructions. There are some tasks which do benefit from the visual aspect of a video, but most do not.

EmpressaurusOfCats · 22/04/2023 17:18

What other posters said about them being a pain to listen to. I’d far, far rather have written words.

I loathe & despise people who play noise on their phones in public, so if I get a voice note when I’m out I’m going to ignore it until I’m home, by which time it might well be irrelevant. I do usually message back saying Can’t listen to this now, text me if urgent / important, though.

Foxgluv · 22/04/2023 23:40

Hate them. I cringe when one comes through, they're like stilted conversations between 2 voicemails.

I also find them impractical. I'm not always in a position to reply straight away (I would never respond using that means) so I prefer a written message to reply to.

HighInfidelity · 22/04/2023 23:49

I hate them. It takes a lot longer to listen to a voice note than it does to read a text and I feel like I need to concentrate more on listening than I do on reading so I have to spend longer stopping what I’m doing to listen.

I love speaking to friends on the phone and can easily have conversations of over an hour but they’re conversations that flow between us not like stilted voice notes. Calling and texting are both good ways to communicate, voice notes are a weird middle ground that just don’t work for me.

13Bastards · 23/04/2023 09:46

My friends and I use them all the time, useful when describing something in detail, a funny story etc.

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