After slogging my way through several minutes-long voicemail messages today, I’m developing a hypothesis about divergent voicemail styles. As text messaging has increased, it seems to me anecdotally that voicemail usage has decreased, but those who do leave voicemail messages tend to leave very long ones. If you project that trend out to what may well be an illogical conclusion, voicemail usage will splinter into two factions: those who are so opposed to leaving messages that they hang up before the voicemail even answers, and those who will leave a mini-autobiography. Eventually, the first group stops using the phone altogether, and the second group adopts a new protocol in which they proactively record their message and send that recording to the recipient, bypassing any intent to actually speak with the person they would have been calling. Basically voice email. In other words, the second group stops using the phone altogether, as well.

What are your predictions?

Long voicemails = the end of phones?
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