It depends on the circumstances. I don't know why for the life of me, hands-free car systems haven't adopted a way to play and aend them. If I get one on WhatsApp, it just says "xyz sent you a voice message"

I only use them for close friends anyway. Sometimes it's easier. My girlfriend and I usually send them to each other when one of us is walking.

On Snapchat they're absolutely woeful, the screen can go off when it's playing, and if they send a new message, it restarts itself.

Voice messages?

I hate those from the bottom of my heart. It's one of the worst ways to convey information.

TLDR: god awful sound quality and amount of background noise with it mostly being just verbal diarrhea.

Of course there are exceptions.

Often used by the sender just to send something quick but they are horrible. Now have to find my headset so I can listen to them in private (it's hard to press play while having it at your ear or you'll miss the start). Frequently hard to hear what they say. Some just ramble on for ages before getting to the point. I just send back "DNL text me."

I don't know anyone who has ever deliberately pressed the button, every time I receive one it's a few seconds of silence or rustling followed by an apology text.

A nice feature for people who like it I'm sure, but I'll text if I want asynchronous communication or just phone someone if I need to speak now.

I think if someone sends me a voice message I should be allowed to call the police on them.

I think they're actually a really easy-to-use and convenient way of someone sending me a message that I'll never listen to.

Never used them ever.

I occasionally still get messages on my mobile provider's default voicemail, and honestly by far the biggest issue is the fact that it very slowly reads out the sender's full number and the exact time of the message before even starting. Without that it would still be bad, but probably 10 times less bad.

I hate whoever decided this was a good idea on dating profiles. I don't like making them, I don't listen to them, and there is nothing sexy or romantic about voicemail.

I feel like this could be easily solved. Just post a transcript under the voice note

I love them in certain situations. You can hear if a person sounds genuine or not. Anyone can write a difficult text or copy and send it, but to say something and mean it is a very different thing. Especially if they are responding to somethong and do it fast

I use AI transcriptions and read them. I feel if the person can't put effort into writing, they shouldn't expect me to put effort into listening.

I sometimes send them when I don't have a better way of communicating (e.g. during a quick stop in the car) but I tend to apologise because I know how much of a ballache they are.

They're for absolute numpties. I knew someone who started using them all the time because it's hip or something, never listened to them and got him to stop. It takes more effort than typing them and suggests you're in love with your own voice or speak too much