Voice notes are taking over Britain, but the fatigue is real
Key Points
- Brits are adopting voice notes at an increasing rate, but at the same time are feeling fatigue from listening to them.
- A new study shows that voice notes are becoming the new norm for digital communication, especially amongst Gen Z.
- However, there is concern that listening to longer voice notes demands too much attention from the listener, especially if they are long and rambling.
- Studies show people are concerned voice notes are replacing real engagement, and listeners note they are often overly long or self-involved.
- 23% of Brits regularly received voice notes longer than five minutes, and 61% of respondents believed that the form of communication was lazy.
Almost a quarter of Brits now talk more than they type, but who pays the price for the convenience of recording a message?
Twilio recently polled 2,000 UK adults and found that 22% of Brits talk more than they type when interacting with technology, and WhatsApp voice notes are increasingly becoming the new norm for communication.
While still relatively rare amongst Gen X and Millennials, voice notes are an increasingly important method of communication for Gen Z Brits, as almost a quarter of Gen Z adults in the UK say they send voice notes multiple times per day.
People in the UK are becoming more accustomed to speaking to their devices instead of typing on them in general, with 41% of those surveyed saying they are now more comfortable using voice technology features in their personal lives than a few years ago.
One of the key attractions of a voice note is how easy it is to record over typing a message, demonstrated by 47% respondents saying a voice note was faster than typing.
The rise of ‘voice note fatigue’
Voice notes may be convenient and undeniably useful in many cases, but there is some concern that they demand too much attention from the listener and are, in some cases, too convenient.
Last year, research from OnePoll and Statista was collated by Heineken as part of a marketing campaign to get people talking over a beer in person rather than via voice notes.
The study polled 14,000 people from around the world and found that the average person spends almost 150 years a year sending and receiving voice notes, with more than half feeling that voice notes were replacing real-life interactions.
Interestingly, the cohort most likely to admit that voice notes were replacing real engagement was Gen Z, with 60% stating they felt this shift.
While a shift in communication from personal to digital may come with its own issues, there is growing sentiment of ‘voice note fatigue’ amongst those who use the medium regularly.
76% of people surveyed in that same poll said that voice notes tended to be self-involved, and a fair portion found the practice of listening to voice notes to be tedious or boring.
One in 20 people said they had received voice notes exceeding 10 minutes long, and 88% said they had forgotten what was said when listening to a long voice note.
The data shows that for the most part, nobody like a long voice note. last Year, Sky Mobile commissioned a study in the UK that found more than six in ten Brits said they had experienced voice note fatigue.
Polling 2,000 mobile users, Sky Mobile found that almost half of Brits listen to voice notes on double speed and 38% say they have to listen to a message twice because a sender has not quickly got to the point.
This research found that 23% of Brits regularly received voice notes longer than five minutes, and 61% of respondents believed that the form of communication was lazy.
While voice notes are a useful mode of communication on the rise in the UK, it is apparent that many are concerned at the podcast-scale recordings they receive from their friends, loved ones, and even strangers on dating apps.
Across the board, the consensus is clear that if you are going to send a voice note and value the attention of your recipient, you should keep it brief and get to the point. Next time you consider tapping record and rambling as you go, it might be a better move to save your recipient some effort and send a text.
