Annabel Martin is wrong about voice notes (The hill I will die on: Voice notes have made my generation a bunch of self-absorbed bores, 9 May). They do not exemplify our disconnected digital landscape, but attempt to combat it.
Listening to friends’ half-formed musings is a core part of sustaining a relationship, and one that has become increasingly uncommon in an isolated digital age. In an age of “did the journal factory explode” – a catchphrase used when someone is oversharing and saying something that could have been written in a journal instead – and the pop psychology of emotional labour, text messages have become increasingly refined, the barrier of hitting enter protecting us against embarrassment, but the voice note allows for thinking mid-sentence and hearing your friends in a raw, uncurated state.
Though some may prefer phone calls, and that’s understandable, voice notes are more polite and conscious of our time than traditional phone calls, not less. A phone call requires immediate attention; a voice note can be left to whenever you are free to listen, or pretend to have listened.
Nancy Mellor
Stockport
