Voicemail has lived a long and useful life. But from everything I can see, it's on the verge of extinction- along with old friends such as telephone land lines and those big cordless phones with long silver aerials (like the one favored by Jerry Seinfeld in his apartment).
The interesting thing about this phase of technological evolution is that it appears to be as much a social shift as a technological one. From where I sit, voicemail isn't dying out because it stopped doing its job well - or some other technology came along that did it better. In fact, voicemail has changed a whole lot in terms of how it's delivered - from the classic "answering machine" to today's digital voice recording. But the way in which you interact with voicemail - and it's core purpose - has remained the same.
Voicemail is dying because no-one wants to leave voicemails anymore - and even fewer people want to listen to them.
Based on a completely non-scientific study of friends and family, the only people who seem to leave voicemails are above a certain age threshold - and that threshold seems to be rising. A few years ago, I started to notice that my own teenage kids would never leave me a voicemail. First of all, they would never call a landline. And if they called my cellphone and I didn't answer right away, they would either keep trying - or send me a text. The other thing I noticed was that if I left a voicemail, it often was either disdained (why did you leave me a voicemail? That is SO lame) or completely ignored.
Now don't get me wrong. I love my kids - and they're really great people. But they have been conditioned to expect that almost all technologically-delivered conversation is instant - or completely irrelevant. I then started to notice this same trend at work - where younger people in the office (I'll call them twentysomethings) started to operate the same way. Either they would send me an email or engage me in a conversation on IM (Instant Messenger) - but almost never would anyone of that age leave me a voicemail.
Over the past two years, the age bar has continued to rise to the people where the only people who really ever leave me voicemail now are my parents (who are 78 and 85). Everyone else has bought into the "instant engagement" mode of communication.
I predict that email will be the next on the endangered technology list - at least for social interactions. Already I'm seeing a huge trend towards friends leaving me Facebook messages - or texting me - if they want to get in touch. And, a few years ago, those same friends would have sent me an email (or left me a voicemail).
This evolution is ripe for many things - including comedy. So I'll leave you with one of a recent sketch about Facebook (and generational mismatches) from Saturday Night Live!
Leave your message after the beep........
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