As we enter a new decade, our content consumption experience is still as visual as ever if not more so. Society is glued to their screens day and night. As you read this blog, take a moment to observe those around you (if you happen to be in a public space). Chances are, you see at least one person staring into their smartphone. Likely, it’s more than just one person. This social addiction to visual content can have negative effects such as weight gain, visual & cognitive issues and poor sleep. Audio, on the other hand, is a far healthier and more efficient form of content consumption.
As well as being a healthier option, sensory repression (in this case visual) can tingle our brains in intense ways. For example, closing your eyes to listen to your surroundings, to listen to music, audiobooks or meditation apps can activate the brain in a different way to visual stimulants. By repressing or removing senses such as sight can lead to new and enthralling mental experiences. Most adults can’t handle distraction, they find it hard to do more than one thing at a time, this applies to about 98% of the population. The results of shifting between tasks can eat up as much as 40% of our brain time. Productivity and mental well-being are not the only casualties of distraction.
Voice has the potential to transform and enhance our relationship with all technology by pushing it to the background as it can be consumed passively. If we’re doing our job right, voice technology will be the catalyst for making the world smarter, without making us dumber, and making technology invisible while driving human connection forward.
Juniper research predicts that globally there will be as much as 8 billion smart speakers in use by 2023 immersing people’s homes with voice assistants such as — Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. This shows a massive shift and growth towards audio consumption.
It is highly noticeable that there is a big difference in how people interact with voice technology compared to screen-based media. This can be seen when using the Siri function, for example, to pull up apps or book appointments etc. Mobile and tablet devices are different by design — hence more isolating — voice is naturally inclusive and participatory. It’s a social experience that engages everyone to the fullest potential. Speaking is also 3x faster than typing. It’s faster to ask a digital assistant like Siri or Cortana a question than to type into a search bar or text message. This has been generally identified as one of the best applications of voice, it is more efficient. People can ask an assistant to play a song or translate a word in Spanish at the same moment they are driving or working out in the gym. Furthermore, people can ask questions they or people around them would never know for example, ‘is Australia still on fire’. Rather than being sucked into the digital quicksand of a device, voice tech acts like a trampoline, bouncing people right back into the moment.
Advancements in voice technology are happening at a tremendous rate and this is why the growth in audio material has been on a consistent rise over the last few years. Limor is at the front of the race for this technological growth making it easier for users to access and exploit these new technologies in the voice sector.
Download Limor to start your social audio journey!
