Do you love or loathe voice notes? 

Increasingly the preferred method of communication for many people, some people simply adore them. 

While for others, receiving a notification that someone has sent you a voice note fills them with dread at having to listen to someone’s meandering mutterings. 

On The Hard Shoulder, Irish Examiner journalist Esther McCarthy explained why she is very much a fan. 

“You don’t need to type anything, you don’t need to worry about wrong spellings and you can actually listen back to yourself,” she said. 

“So, you can kind of have your own little mini podcast.

“It’s easy, it’s lovely, it’s great craic, I love getting them and I love sending them. 

“I don’t know what I ever did without them.” 

Yesterday, Ms McCarthy sent about 20 to just one person but on some days it can be up to 40. 

What she especially likes is that you can click fast forward on them if someone is not getting to the point. 

“If I pick up the phone to my aunt, I am there for an hour,” she said. 

“That’s an hour of my evening gone. 

“It just chops out all of the baloney.” 

Girl sending a voice note on her phone. Picture by: Oscar Martin / Alamy Stock Photo

On the other side of the argument was journalist Niamh O’Reilly, who said voice notes “have their place, definitely”. 

“And maybe if you are in a rush or there’s some kind of reason why you can’t text or phone somebody, I think they’re perfectly fine,” she added.

“But I think the rate at which people are going for them as their default means of communication with someone else, it’s sad. 

“I think we’re losing the art of conversation.” 

Overall, she feels they are a huge inconvenience. 

“It always makes me laugh when someone sends me a voice note and they start off by saying, ‘I’m, just a voice note now because it’s easier,’” she said. 

“And I always say to myself, ‘Well, easier for who?’

“It’s not easier for me because I probably have to now listen to three to five minutes of your overbloated almost Hamlet style monologue where you go off the point a million times.”

Main image: A woman recording a voice note. Picture by: Yuri Arcurs / Alamy Stock Photo