Friend keeps sending long voice notes instead of messages

[GirouxSein]

A friend has started sending voice notes for everything. Some of them are 5 minutes long and I often can’t listen straight away. It then feels rude when I reply hours later.
I know it’s probably meant to be more personal, but I find it a bit overwhelming and honestly prefer a normal message I can skim when I’m busy.

I have/had a friend who loved long, rambling voice notes. It was hard work. Then she had a baby. Voice notes with baby crying in background. Then baby became a toddler and she started getting the toddler to leave the voice notes. Excruciating and impossible to understand. Toddler babble with whispering parent encouraging the toddler in the background. I explained I couldn't understand the message, and please to text a quick message, or let's meet in person. She persisted. I gave up. I still get a voicenote from her now and again, but I don't listen and don't reply.

Ring me or text me. Voice notes are the downsides of both with the benefits of neither.

If this is on WhatsApp then get the app to transcribe it and then you can read it

Why do people send them? I honestly don't understand.

See, I don’t think it’s ironic at all. I choose to read MN when I have a free moment, I can even do it on the train or a boring work meeting. Can’t really listen to a voice note in those situations and to think someone wants you to specifically carve out 6 mins to listen to them rambling is self indulgent.

I’ve never done voice notes. I only text back.
If it’s too long, I listen to a minute, ignore or delete.

I am not a fan of these and having given it a go myself found quite quickly how they can easily become a repetitive stream of consciousness lasting ten minutes whilst saying very little. And of course you're not always in a position to listen to them and then I find I forget about them. I'm not sure how you tackle in with your friend perhaps a polite, "would you mind texting me a line when you send the voice notes as I'm not always able to listen to them". That way you're covered but the AI summary does sound like a good idea too if you can work out how to do that.

It feels like we've forgotten just why answerphones and voicemail died a death the moment that text messaging became widely simple and affordable. And something is being reinvented from its deserved obsolescence because it's a bit of a novelty.

I bloody love a phone call. A proper two way conversation with back and forth. I actually quite like a WhatsApp conversation, especially with a group. There's an ability to add a layer of visual richness that you can't achieve with just a verbal conservation, and it can be really enjoyable.

I'm much less keen on being broadcast at. For the most part it's tedious and interrupts the day far more than a text you can quickly scan would have done.

I've got one friend whose voice notes I actively look forward to as she treats them as mini-podcasts on subjects of mutual professional interest where she knows I'll be interested in her thoughts, and we often find it hard to line up our schedules for a chat.

(and agree the transcription is really hit and miss especially with regional accents - for example it absolutely can't deal with my eldest's Head of Year. Was a lovely surprise to listen to the voicemail several hours later and find out he'd got an award, which the transcription hadn't managed to convey.)

Same here. A friend has an eye problem so in the meantime, while it’s being treated, I get voice notes. Luckily they are not too long, five minutes would seem so long in this context. They’re necessary at the moment but ironically I respond in text not a voice note 🫤

I love them! Me and one of my friends voice note each other all the time. I love listening to them when I’m doing housework or out for a walk or in the shower. We have a good laugh over them, and some of ours can get long, we joke that they are podcasts.

You're not familiar with the concept that some people process information in some ways much better than others, then? Ironically I think I might cope better with someone trying to explain how to perform open heart surgery on a desert island, because at least then the adrenaline would kick in.

But MN is a self selecting group of people who communicate well in a very visual, text based and interactive form. It makes no sense at all to presume this means they'll be fine with a completely different form of information delivery. Because a lengthy, rambling, unsolicited voice note really is the exact opposite. It's purely auditory and involves no interaction at all.

In the same way that the sort of person who likes to communicate via lengthy exchange of uninterrupted voice notes might not do well if asked to communicate with friends via a method that involves totally visual and mostly text based exchange.

Oooh -interesting want to try that -how do you do it?

these are very good points. don't get lost in the deluge.

I find it rude. They don’t consider you important enough to take the time to type whatever it is they want to say, but your time is not so valuable that you can stop what you are doing to listen to them.

I just text back, sorry I don’t do voice notes, what were you after?

A friend and I send one another voice notes. It’s like a lovely conversation taking place but at disjointed times. It’s interesting to see how much people object to them.

My brother does this. It's lazy and I hate it.

I just don't listen to them.

Annoying. One friend keeps it short fine another just talks on. She said her family dont text. They annoying though if you busy.

Oh, thanks for reminding me of that! 😂😂😂

OP, when people do that I text back "can't listen now" and then leave it. If it's important they'll text, otherwise I'll listen to the podcast when I'm doing the laundry or whenever is convenient to me.

I'm currently listening to a woman on a train leaving a voice note. She's been going for 5 mins now without a pause...

I never listen to voice notes, ever, and I don't feel at all guilty about not replying to them. The only person I know who does it is my younger sister, luckily, and generally they are to group chats so I assume if it was anything important someone will react to it in a non-voice note form.

My daughter (15) sends me voice notes. Usually a stream of 5 second notes that someone on the bus smells, shes freezing, is her period due, did she leave her maths jotter at home, whats for dinner. Unimportant nonsense, mainly.
Transcribe is hopeless, because her messages are such a random jumble, and shes often having a conversation with her friends at the same time as recording the voice note.

I hate voice notes and I keep telling my voice note obsessed friends I don't listen to them.

This is interesting because it's exactly why I hate voicenotes - I have to stop what I'm doing to listen to them.

If I'm with people chatting (or even just chilling with DP) I have to leave the room. If I'm watching a film or listening to music I have to stop it. If I'm working I have to break my concentration in a way I don't have to do with messages.

And it is so much quicker to take in written information, which I can then refer back to easily as well.

I disable voicemail for the entirety of the smartphone era for good reason, and it's unbelievable it snuck back in through the back door. I'm having none of it - I don't listen to voicenotes and if anyone sends me one I just tell them that.

I love voice notes /have a few friends that share them. Much easier to quickly convey info in a voice note than typing.

Android too 😁

Also as someone who uses automated transcription services for work, I wouldn't trust their accuracy in the slightest if it was something important.