[Roritharr]

Is this a me thing, or a millenial thing?

I hate using voice for anything. I hate getting voice messages, I hate creating them. I get cold sweats just thinking about having to direct 10 AI Agents via voice. Just give me a keyboard and a bunch of screens, thanks.

[forgotoldacc]

I'm a millennial. I refuse to use voice controls. Never used them in my life and hope I never have to. There's a block in my brain that just refuses to let me talk to a machine to give it orders.

Though I'll gladly call it various foul names when it's refusing to do what I expected it to do.

[SV_BubbleTime]

You guys all sound like you have more hands than I do. And nothing else in them.

[Demiurge]

My jaw hurts after an hour long meeting. I lose my voice after 2 hours. Can’t say I’ve ever noticed finger fatigue, even after 16 hours of typing and playing guitar.

Yeah, I think I’d rather click and type than talk, all day.

[Tsarp]

Probably worth trying one of the many dictation apps out there based on whisper. They can get most coding terms(lib names, tech stack names) accurately and its one of those things you have to really try for a week before dismissing fully.

1. Superwhisper - https://superwhisper.com

2. Macwhisper - https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper

3. Carelesswhisper - https://carelesswhisper.app

[shermantanktop]

Remind me: 20 years

Some of us who’ve been in this game for a while consider having healthy hands to be a nice break between episodes of RSI, PT, etc. YMMV of course but your muscle stamina won’t be the problem, it’s your tendons and eventually your joints.

[Tsarp]

Voice as an interface is a life changer if you've ever had any bit of RSI at any point.

[HappMacDonald]

How many of you people having problems with hand health vis a vis typing are still using home row?

I've done more typing than speaking for over 40 years now, and I've never had any carpel tunnel or joint problems with my hands (my feet on the other hand.. hoo boy!) and I've always used a standard layout flat QWERTY keyboard.. but I never bend my hands into that unnatural "home row" position.

I type >60wpm using what 40 years ago was "hunt and peck" and evolved over brute force usage into "my hands know where they keys are, I am right handed so my right hand monopolizes 2/3 of the keyboard, both hands know where every key is so either one can take over the keyboard if the other is unavailable (holding food, holding microphone for when I do do voice work, using mouse, etc)".

But as a result my hands also evolved this bespoke typing strategy which naturally avoids uncomfortable poses and uncomfortable repetition.

[abtinf]

> My jaw hurts after an hour long meeting

I’m very sorry for you if this is literally true. I would urge you to seek medical help, as this is not normal at all.

[awestroke]

You may want to try listening to others during meetings rather than talk ceaselessly

[mcintyre1994]

The only AI feature I want added to WhatsApp is transcribing voice messages!

[jdjxjdjnsn]

I don't get why this isn't a feature for a long time yet

[tobad357]

There is but needs to be enabled. Go to Settings > Chats > Voice message transcripts and turn the feature on

[oezi]

English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian only

[diggan]

I'd wager that probably covers only ~30% of the world population, and considering that people who speak Mandarin for example use other apps, it probably covers an even larger slice of the Whatsapp userbase.

[oezi]

I think it is less than 20% of world population are native speakers and will receive audio messages in those languages.

[pigeonhole123]

On my iPhone I can choose from hundreds of languages

[oezi]

For transcribing WhatsApp audio messages?

[mcintyre1994]

Awesome, thanks!

[stefanfisk]

I’m the same. I love that writing allows you to think while typing so that you can review and revise your thoughts before letting them out in the world.

And don’t get me started on video vs text for learning purely non-physical stuff like programming…

[fhd2]

I'm another millennial that doesn't like them. I type pretty fast, around 100 WPM, so outside environments where I can't type (e.g. while driving), I just never saw the appeal. Typing has a way of helping me shape my thoughts precisely that I couldn't replicate with first thinking about what I want to say, and then saying it precisely.

But I can appreciate that sitting down in front of a keyboard and going at it with low typing speed seems unnatural and frustrating for probably the majority of people. To me, in front of a keyboard is a fairly natural state. Somebody growing up 15 years before (got by without PCs in their early years) or after me (got by with a smartphone) probably doesn't find it as natural.

[viraptor]

It's practice... Consciously try using the voice input for a while and see how you feel after a few days. I ended up liking it for some things more than others. This is typed via voice with minor edits after. This relies on the new models though - the older systems just didn't work as well.

[esperent]

I've consciously tried doing this for the past month on Android when chatting to Claude... when I'm alone. Don't think I could ever feel comfortable doing it around people.

I think I'm marginally faster using speech to text than using a predictive text touch keyboard.

But it makes enough mistakes that it's only very slightly faster, and I have a very mild accent. I expect for anyone with a strong accent it's a non starter.

On a real keyboard where I can touch type, it's much slower to use voice. The tooling will have to improve massively before it's going to be better to work by speaking to a laptop.

[Wowfunhappy]

Voicemail universally sucks. However, when you're having a synchronous conversation with actual people, do you prefer to do everything via IM, or would you prefer a phone call?

[all2]

Email. Async comms make sense 99% of the time at my job. Unless there's deep work to be done, or pie-in-the-sky idea fabricating. Or rubber-ducky sessions. But I won't do those with AI.

[skydhash]

Email is Calm Technology[0] for collaborative knowledge work, where you expected to spend hours on a single task. If something needs brainstorming, or quick back and forth, you jump on a more synchronous type of conversation (IM, call, in person meeting).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology

[tuckerman]

I almost never prefer a phone call, I'd rather go all the way to video/in-person or stick with text. I also prefer to push anything important that isn't extremely small out of instant messaging and to email.

Brainstorming/whiteboarding, 1:1s or performance feedback, team socialization, working through something very difficult (e.g. pair debugging): in-person or video

Incidents, asking for quick help/pointers, small quick questions, social groups, intra-team updates: IM

Bigger design documents and their feedback, trickier questions or debugging that isn't urgent, sharing cool/interesting things, inter-team updates: Email

[dmd]

IM, 100%. Otherwise only the loud people ever speak, whether or not they have anything useful to say.

[ribelo]

> do you prefer to do everything via IM, or would you prefer a phone call?

It's hard for me to believe that there are psychopaths among us who prefer call on the phone, slack huddle or even organize meetings instead of just calmly writing messages on IM over coffee.

[codemac]

receiving audio = slow

sending audio = fast

[dcsan]

Yes this is known etiquette eg in China where voice memos are widely used on WeChat. Sending a voice memo is slightly rude for business as it says I the sender value my time to dash something off more even if it’s inconvenient for you the receiver who has to then stop and listen to it. Between friends is a bit different as voice has a level of personal warmth.

[jdmoreira]

I don't know. I'm 40 but I do like pair programming so…

[dionian]

I would agree but i use voice heavily with AI agents and here is why: no matter how fast i can type, i can speak much faster, and while i do other tasks.

[fnordpiglet]

One advantage is speaking is generally faster than typing. Imagine instead of talking to a bunch of AI you’re talking to a room full of coworkers about the architecture to develop.