TOThe hand has not received a very long, incomprehensible hand, full of noises: metropolitans, ambulances, traffic. Who did not hate the sentence: “I send you a vowel so I do before.” Outbursts, requests for help, appointments, greetings, one -way conversations: i voice messages They are all this.
There are those who hate them to the point of delete them Without having listened to them, and on WhatsApp notes: “Hi, I don’t answer the vowels.” There are those who repent, because it takes very little to get into troubleespecially if you are famous. It happened to Raoul Bovawho found himself at the center of a blackmail and denounced it. So the love phrases addressed to the influencer Martina Ceretti were widespread on the net By triggering an uproar of interventions: postal police, judiciary, codacons, privacy guarantor, lawyers.
In spite of the “cons”, it circulates A huge amount of vowels: Over seven billion a day in 2022, then they stopped counting them. For the English newspaper The Guardian they prove that “The levels of narcissism are increasing “. Jacob Sweet journalist in Maybe don’t send that voicepublished on The Atlanticwrites that “feeling on the phone, people can interrupt, ask clarifications, have a dialogue. Who receives audio, instead, it can only listen».
African American business woman who records a voice message on her smartphone, smiling while standing in a modern office, embracing technology for effective communication (Getty Images).
On the British The SpectatorFlora Watkins condemns the tyranny of vocal notes Describing them as “a crime of hatred”: quick and comfortable, yes, but for the sender, “while for the recipient they are a horrible thing, which requires negotiations”. Massimo Gramellini on the Corriere della Sera: «There is of theextremism and of the Menefreghismo in the air conditioning shot in the ball as in the Vocal messages heard in public without the headphones ».
Desire to be heard immediately
We can discuss it, but now they are part of the popular culture. They enter the series (Calls, on Apple TV+, is entirely built around the audio records of phone calls and messages), in the films (the Jurassic Park-Jurassic World video game saga), in music. One of the most famous songs of the band Thegiornalisti, Happiness whoreincludes the sentence “I send you a ten -minute voice just to tell you how happy I am”entry into common use. Adele Use vowels on album 30: My Little Love. Contains messages exchanged with his son Angelo (questions about divorce) and with the ex -husband, Simon Konecki, on the end of their marriage. In Facebook Story, of Frank Oceanthere is the audio of a girl who tells of his disappointment: The ex -boyfriend stopped following her on the social network. Taylor Swift slip into the text of one of his Famous piece All Too Well His vowel: “This song is on the first real break that he has ever had, and it is this: do you know when you feel such a strong feeling for someone and then you lose it and it seems that you are nothing more than you?”. Meanwhile, Tiktok depopulate the comic sketches (Dante’s vowels in Beatrice, by Romeo a Giulietta).
We are faced with a communication manifesto in line with the world of social networks: less effort, more expressiveness. Perhaps it is time to evaluate it scientifically. The Swiss University of Neuchâtel is trying with the “Give Your Voice to Science” linguistic research project. Scholars collected and analyzed 1,600 vowels in an attempt to decipher the Emotional and social grammar. One comes out cross surprising of society. A curious sociological-denial encyclopedia. A tool of daily self-narration, a public diary that responds to need to be listened to. Right away. The phenomenon, exploded with WhatsApp in 2013, spread on Messenger, Snapchat and Instagram, which has elongated the duration of vowels from 59 seconds to 5 minutes, More than a journalistic service on TV.
We don’t waste time with the text
In another investigation, conducted in France with 1,500 interviews, 33 percent confesses that the main motivation is the laziness. But also the obsession and the idea of explain better in tone, pause, sighs, laughter and screamsif this is the case. Average endurance threshold? 41 seconds. Not many. We send 3,7 average messages per day, but Wins the gen z. One in five ships even more than ten in 24 hours. It is a recognizable tribe: on the street they walk with the smartphone held horizontally next to the ear.
Why Do we prefer audio to phone calls? We behave as if sharing made everything more real. Chiara Cilardo, psychologist and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, owner of the Digital Psychology column on PsychoVago, lists the reasons in favor: «Practicality, parallinguistic expression, emotional connection and accessibility. A vocal message can be deleted, unlike what is said in a call, it is fast, there is no need to waste time to type a text. It can be recorded at any time, even walking. Volume, intonation and inflection can make everything clearer, avoid misunderstandings and misunderstandings. The item transmits complex emotions or specific tones, such as irony or seriousnessdifficult to grasp in the written text.
Expresses the response to particularly felt events or thoughts; And in fact the vowels are used for communicate with friends, family, girlfriends. The emotional impact is greater than a text or an emotion and, when you are far, it is The thing closest to being with someone to which we hold ».
Real. In As it is, graceful and autobiographical film by Antonello Scarpelli awarded the Bellaria Film Festival 2024the mother (in Calabria) and the son (in Germany) communicate only through the vowelseven if at some point they are not enough.
The rigid etiquette to follow
So, because of the hectic use, something similar to a label is being born, explains Elisa Motterle, expert of bon ton contemporary (the last book is Bon ton pop at work ). Here are some basic considerations: «If you send five audio For thirty seconds each is not better than one of two minutes. It’s worse. He thinks before speaking, for not having phrases full of “eeehhhmmm” and “that is”. Use earphones to listen, or Try to satisfy you and speak in a low voiceespecially in public places.
If you go to a vowel, he explains why (“I’m driving”). At work, use it only in case of consolidated professional relationshipsand after asking for permission, never at the first contact. Few, simple rules: go straight to the point (“Hello, I update you on …”) And not to speak for more than 30-40 seconds, otherwise it is better an email. Avoid multitasking (if in the meantime you are cooking, or doing anything else, you feel), out of place confidences or complaints: The item amplifies everything. And if from information, addresses, notes and telephone numbers hesitates in writing ».
This means that the vocal notes, entering our life, will hardly come out. Let’s console ourselves with one semi -philosophical reflection. Send an audio message, even unbearable, It is one of the last “human” gestures in the digital world. In a very famous cartoon of the 90s, at the beginning of the euphoria for the net, there were two dogs in front of a computer. The one with the mouse paw explained to the other: “On the internet nobody knows that you are a dog”. Today, when you write on WhatsApp nobody knows If you are chatgpt who pretends to be a person or the opposite. In vowels, dogs still seem dogs, artificial intelligences seem to be artificial intelligence and People seem people. Will we end up re -evaluating them?