NYT's 'You've Got Voice Mail, But Do You Care?"

   Love this story for the wealth of research in it. And the damn piece was buried , sort of, in the April 2 ThursdayStyles section. What the April 1 were they foolishly thinking?
   Yes, it's at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/fashion/02voicemail.html?scp=1&sq=You%27ve%20got%20voice%20Mail,%20But%20Do%20You%20Care?&st=cse
    So you read it and yeah Google Voice will rock the world, especially when you mix in the iPhone.
   But Thou Shalt Not Dis the Voicemail.
   Granted speed is nice. But Boingo me down, speed is not excellence in communications. Speed is not meaningful relationships and better community. Speed is not the be all and end all unless you analyze info for money. Yeah, whatever it is you do "on the clock" in the raging machine. Speed is not quality per se. It is but one factor. Boingo that running nymph of a pseudo-hipster metrosexual logo for Internet Wifi services across travel crossroads anyways. And love the fact Boingo is running into the ether. Boingo is leaping into nowhere. And he, no, it is emblazoned on side of WA State Ferries!
  Now, you want your life speeded up?
  Now, do you truly wish the quantity and quality of your life sped up?
  Or do you want quality increased, appreciation increased and meaningful enjoyment of life slowed to a luxurious, sensual, sensory crawl?
  Certainly, ask a teenager that question, versus a Baby Boomer, versus a Pensioner and you'll get somewhat different responses. My guess is that the kids on the left of that bell curve all want more jazz, more speed. And those on the far side of that actuary curve would die for some more time. They'd just do most anything for more meaning, more time, more quality. And they'd like to enjoy it s--l--o--w--l--y.
     Ask yourself if the telephone call from your mother is richer in text or richer for the intonation of a woman who gave you birth, who awoke you from bed on a chilly morning in East Cleveland and sang to you as a child. What voice do you want recorded in the archives of your external hard drive? Or would you rather have that woman's voice put into a text message? Do you want the emotions drained, the lilt and crescendo, the passion and the fury shaved away so that only the b-l-a-c-k and w-h-i-t-e parsed typed characters are embossed on digital screens, frozen in milky amber and ether? Or is this question just too slow and too much to ponder is the fury of daily demands for some?
    Too busy to think, Boingo? In too big a rush to answer, Boingo?
   Now ask yourself, as New York Times Writer Jill Colvin does in the very well-crafted piece with story source Charlie Park, 30, a Web developer in Williamsburg, VA, and his daughter Lucy, 5, does: What's in a voice? Now every parent and every human, not jaded but jazzed, by technology knows the tagline to this story.
   You get a voicemail call from your son. He is crying. He is laughing out loud. He can't wait to tell you something.
   Rewind.
   He's crying because something went bad at school, and he's asking you why. Why does he have to do something that cries out as unfair? Why must he stay after school, face another session with his nemisis at Parks and Rec? Or conversely: Can he stay longer at Parks & Rec because he's just had a great day? He just won the "daily reward" and he's jazzed to show it to you!
   Rewind. He is laughing out loud.
   "O.M.G., Dad! O.M.G. Dad! You can't believe it! SlimeMantha just gave birth to baby lizards!" he yells, breathless over the phone.
    "There's one by the corner. Dad, you can't believe it! There's another lizard by the water dish! SlimeMantha, Dad! Oh My God! Dad you've got to come home and see this!"
   When a child discovers the miracle of birth and shares it in a voice mailbox. It is recorded forever. At least it was on my data recorder.
   So before the officials at the uReach Technologies and Opinion Research Corporation celebrate the death of voicemail. Before the suits default phone systems to all text transcribed for its speed, its quantifiable, verifiable, greater-than-great usefulness and efficiency, they need to listen.
    They need to hear a voicemail from my son. They need to listen.