Just a bit more about those voice memos...

Hello, here an annoying person, according to science. I just love sending and receiving voice memos. They can't be cozy, long, and detailed enough for me, and I have my reasons for that.

In the beginning, everyone was complaining that you couldn't properly listen to those dragon things because everyone was eavesdropping. But a solution came quickly, and then voice memos became even easier to use. Since the whole world nowadays walks around with AirPods, you don't have to worry about that at all anymore. These are just a few practical issues that needed to be tackled even before I started my plea for the voice memo.

My career in voice memos started from the car. Texting is life-threatening behind the wheel, but sometimes my time just wasn't sufficient for a full phone call. My phone calls always run terribly over time. Enter: the voice memo. The voice memo is your salvation when calling isn't an option, but a text isn't enough or, in this case, is life-threatening. I suspect that my very first voice memo came from May, who also found it great fun when I recorded the day's status with my sweet-voiced tone (as she calls my voice). Just a little back-and-forth, to put it in correct (?) office terms.

The voice memo doesn't take up your time at all; it's actually a free pass to listen to it when it suits you. This can even be a day later when you finally sit alone in the car or on the toilet. Look, there's another reason why voice memos are better than calling because you can just listen to them while peeing. Very efficient all around. By the way, I always feel particularly organized when I set my memo to 1.5 times the speed to listen to it. My voice memo sisters can sometimes use a bit of pace, and I have control over how quickly things get wrapped up.

Can I deliver a monologue of at least five minutes? Without any effort. Yes, you do have to be quite a chatterbox for that, but that fits because I am one. I don't see this as ego-tripping, as it's sometimes called, because the other person can also take all the space to enjoy voicememoing back. Let's just make a verb out of it. I voicememo, you voicememoed, and we voicememo. By the way, I mainly use the recorded message to explain and substantiate, so it's not like I'm endlessly whining about myself.

Speaking of whining: another advantage. In a voice memo, you hear the intonation of the other person. Crazy, on the edge of the abyss, tight with stress? Everything comes through. Look, you can't see that in a message with a half-baked emoticon at the end of every sentence. Quite handy.

One of my favorite friends (hi Viv) has almost unfriended me for sending voice memos, so for her, I make an exception, but otherwise, I still stick to my love for voice memos. Voice memos rock. Amen. And do you have anything to add? Then send me a voice memo on Insta via @adelinemans, there's at least a max of one minute. I suspect a bit out of (self)protection for the senders and receivers, but feel free to send me a few. I looooove voice memos.