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DESCRIPTION – A practical and effective voice note has risen to the top of the communication pyramid. Among users, some listen before or immediately after sending their post. What can make you get along?
Due to lack of time or laziness to play with your fingers on the touch keyboard of your smartphone, you certainly sometimes send a voice note on WhatsApp to quickly convey information to your interlocutor or, on the contrary, to enjoy it for a long time and miss you. with a story (to the great disappointment of some listeners). You may have heard yourself again pressing the play button on said note before or right after you sent it. “Generally, victims admit to doing it in a slightly embarrassing way, as if the gesture raises questions,” says Samuel Dock, MD, a psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. And for good reasons. What might make you want to get along? How can we explain that we can even feel some pleasure in doing this? Should there be a display of disproportionate narcissism?
Discovery and Rediscovery
There is some narcissism behind the gesture, yes, but there is nothing monstrous about it. In psychoanalysis, the voice is speech, pleasure, and also a mirror of oneself, recalls Samuel Dock. “When we speak, we don’t hear ourselves,” he continues, “so by listening to his vocal note, we can feel the pleasure of discovering ourselves, rediscovering this sonic reflection of ourselves.” I hear my identity, I rediscover my way of speaking, it’s a bit like I’m someone else.”
We can experience pleasure in rediscovering this sonic reflection of ourselves. I am listening to my identity, rediscovering my way of speaking
Samuel Dock, Clinical Psychologist
In some cases, according to the psychologist, listening to your recording again can also allow you to recreate the relationship you had with the person who sent the voicemail. We can define our role in it more precisely. “Here we question the relationship, listening to each other, we understand that we are expressing ourselves and addressing the other in one way or another… This way we rediscover our place,” he says.
Mastery
Not surprisingly, sending your voice note before you hear it also reveals a certain need for control. Camille Tassell, a philosophy professor and psychoanalyst who specializes in virtual psychopathology, sees it more accurately as an expression of what Freud calls “the drive to control, to understand, to have total control.” The concept is simple. we listen to our record again because we want to master it. This answers the anxiety of the unknown that Freud has the other, informs the psychoanalyst. “Thus, I try to master what I am, even what I am (voice note here), to control the access that the other can have to my interior,” depicts Camille Tassell. It is almost a defense mechanism. I am afraid of intrusion, of being “touched” by the other, so I try to control myself so as not to be.
If you look carefully, you can also find the anxiety of making a mistake, of “saying the wrong thing”. and therefore a need for trust, especially among profiles with low self-confidence. Did I express myself correctly and clearly? I was clear in my thoughts. As a checking ritual, I check by listening again. “Here we can feel pleasure, more so when we realize that we are being heard,” comments Samuel Dock. There is pleasure in eliminating anxiety.” A need for confidence that is all the more significant in our current performance-driven society, the psychologist believes.
I try to master what I am, even what I am (voice note here), to control the access that the other can have to my interiority.
Camille Tassel, professor of philosophy and psychoanalyst
That said, we’ll be careful not to overdo it. For the good of ourselves and others. “When I hear my message again, I hear myself as an object again,” notes Camille Tassell. The other one is gone, so I’m not in a dialogue anymore, I’m sending someone a message, but it’s just a monologue.” To finish and perhaps find relief and freedom, psychologist Samuel Dock encourages us to experiment. “With a few vocal notes, we can try not to listen to ourselves anymore, to resist what might seem like the edges of coercion and coercion. Watch what is happening inside me. Am I disappointed or is nothing happening at all?
Source: Le Figaro
