As Heard on All Things Considered

I thought this was an interesting story done on NPR about voice mail messages vs. caller id. I find it ironic that I hear this story on the same day I choose to leave a voice mail message for the chica I spoke with on Saturday. Enjoy.

Leaving Messages? That's So 20th Century
by Lori Gottlieb

Lately a lot of people have been complaining that I am not returning their calls. “But I didn’t get a message” I’ll say, and they’ll get all huffy and say ‘well, didn’t you see me on your caller id?”

Ahh, caller id. Now a days almost everyone’s phone service includes the option where the caller’s number pops up on the recipients digital display. And my friends are saying ‘that a number alone counts as a bonefied message. To me this kind of non-message message isn’t just passive aggressive, it’s ineffective. I don’t really have the time, or the sense of paranoia to scroll through all of my missed calls. My friends see it differently – they believe that because we have such busy lives, voice messages are out-dated. In their view not only is listening to the outgoing message a waste of time, mine lasts a whopping ten seconds but, they insist that leaving a voice message is redundant. As one friend put it ‘all I’d say on a message is call me back.’ My number on your caller id display says the same thing.’ Call me old fashioned, but I like hearing an actual voice

A list of ten digits seems too impersonal. Besides how am I suppose to analyze messages left by boyfriends if there is no voice to analyze? I can’t play a guys message for friends anymore and ask “what do you think he meant by talk to you sooon?” does his emphasizing of the word soon mean I should call him tonight? Or wait until tomorrow? Now all I have to work with is his electronic phone number, and you can’t get much mileage out of that.”

But while leaving messages with caller id seems impersonal there’s also something paradoxically personal about it. There’s an intimacy implied by the shorthand of the digital display. By the fact that I’m supposed to know that my friend Ellen called by simply recognizing her number.

It’s the technological equivalent of the ‘hi it’s me’ message, the kind where you are supposed to know who the ‘me’ is because you recognize that persons voice. Sure on caller ID some times a name pops up, but when its number alone and I don’t know who’s it is the caller feels insulted. And the most frustrating part is now that I’ve started checking my ‘non-message messages’ I’ve noticed that some numbers even have a ‘times two’ or a ‘times three’ after them. Meaning if the person has called back multiple times sending me the telepathic message – along with the dollop of guilt; that I haven’t returned their calls.

Having just left a voice message time’s one, I would have called them back right away; at least that is what my ten second outgoing message says