An audience with me

New WhatsApp developments mean Sophie White is despairing of the return to that somewhat outmoded form of communication — talking

Voice notes were one of the things I had hoped to leave behind in 2019. To explain, if you are not a WhatsApp user: the voice note allows one to record an audio message and send it to a recipient or group. They rose to widespread usage last year and, initially, I was an enthusiastic early adopter because I am a lazy typer.

The voice note was the perfect way to bypass the exertion of typing but still share my top-notch anecdotes with my nearest and dearest. So far, so fine, you may be thinking. However, if you really think about it, we, as a race, have actually managed to snooker ourselves. Cast your mind back to a time when we made phone calls. When the person didn’t answer, we left a message. After the novelty wore off, this became a huge issue, as increasingly we didn’t want to answer phone calls. And we definitely didn’t want to check the bloody messages.

I remember at one point, my phone’s voicemail message was simply: “This is Sophie, please don’t leave a message as I never, ever check them.” With the advent of WhatsApp, so much of the angst was removed. Easy communication minus the dreaded talking factor.

I believed that we had effectively tabled any verbal communication for the foreseeable and presumed we were all happy with that, which is why I view the rise of the voice note as a step backwards in terms of our evolution.

“Why are we back talking to each other?” I

“The advent of WhatsApp gave us easy communication minus the dreaded talking factor”

want to wail, as one particularly active WhatsApp group becomes an unending list of voice notes that I must wade through to get to the point, which is usually just something like: the table is booked for eight, Jess is going to be late, and did you hear so-and-so are splitting up? Unfortunately, any one of them could counter with “you started it!”, as I am equally guilty in the perpetrating of voice notes.

It’s like a new by-product of the social media takeover, because of Instagram et al, we each mistakenly believe ourselves to be micro-celebrities, broadcasting our inane minutiae on an hourly basis.

This would be fine if we each employed a personal producer to tighten up the voice notes and make sure that we didn’t run over time. Maybe the producer could even introduce a few regular slots to break things up/keep it fresh, but no — instead, without a guiding hand, my voice notes are rambling odysseys through the mundane and the mediocre.

In an effort to wean me off the monologuing, I’ve made this granola to keep my mouth pleasantly engaged. The WhatsApp group is thrilled.