Voicemail: Stop leaving it

Voicemail: Stop leaving it

Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Tyler Samien

To anyone who stumbles self-consciously through voice messaging: relax, voicemail is dying along with the home landline. To everyone else: let’s not prolong its suffering. With text and caller id equipped cell phones surpassing landlines, leaving a message after the beep is now an unnecessary and somewhat annoying formality. Unless something extensive and particularly pressing needs to be shared, very few people need or want to spend time dialing into voicemail to hear what their phone has already told them — that you called.

Bothered? It’s true, there is tone and emphasis in verbal communication that cannot be appropriately recreated through text messaging, but these attributes are best used in dynamic two-way communication, not your typical voice message. Plus, short-style communication is developing. Emoticons, zealous over-punctuation, and abbreviations like LOL and LMFAO, though often viewed as detrimental to the language or a product of weak youth subculture, are actually improvements to short-style communication. They create concise meaning when used properly by referencing mutual understanding.

Grandparents, parents over age 35 and anyone operating a motor vehicle may disregard this post. Everyone else, let’s implement this ASAP. ; )

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Tyler Samien

Tyler Samien has a BA in English/creative writing from the University of Tennessee. He enjoys writing everything from scathing online reviews of companies that displease him to nostalgic memoirs of childhood experience. His blog, ReluctantChauffeur, is about to get interesting as he travels the United States with his wife and goofy-faced puppy.