Sometimes a text isn’t enough, but a phone or video call would be too much.

How about a voice message?

Voice messaging has been available on some of the most popular apps for a decade now (it was introduced in WhatsApp and iMessage in 2013 and 2014, respectively), but people are reportedly now using the feature more than ever.

A 2023 survey conducted by Vox, in partnership with the market research company YouGov, found that approximately 62% of Americans said they have sent a voice message. Young people make up a large demographic of voice message users, according to the survey. Forty-three percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they send a voice message at least once a week.

The Washington Post recently wrote a feature on the rising trend, making note that voice messages “have been added to almost every major social media and messaging platform.”

Elizabeth Glowacki, a Northeastern University assistant teaching professor with dual appointments in Bouvé College of Health Sciences and the College of Arts, Media and Design, says the rise in usage makes sense.

Voice messages are more personal than regular texts, and can bring an added layer of authenticity, says Glowacki, whose research areas include messaging, communication and health.

“I think you can feel closer with someone when you can hear their voice as opposed to a text,” she says. “What’s interesting is that usually with a voice memo, it’s a bit more spontaneous. Whereas with a text message, it’s easier to just edit. In some ways, I like voice memos because they are a bit more natural and extemporaneous or impromptu.”

They are also useful in keeping a record of a conversation, allowing people to listen to a person’s vocal message later, she says.

But before you start sending them on a regular basis, it’s definitely worth checking with the person or people you are speaking with about their preferred way to chat, Glowacki says.

“I think for voice memos to work or not, it’s important that both the sender and receiver have the same preferences for communicating,” Glowacki says. “So for example, if I’m someone who prefers text, and this person just sends me voice memos, that’s going to be a larger barrier.”

“Meeting people where they are—that’s what savvy communicators do,” she adds. “You recognize how the person that you’re communicating with prefers to communicate and you try to mirror that.”

Voice memos are great for sharing stories with lots of little details and nuances. Glowacki adds in some situations they might be easier to send than a text message, especially during times where you want to minimize screen time while you are walking and want to be more aware of your surroundings.

But they do have their shortcomings, as Vox highlights.

For one, the receiver might not be in a situation where they can drop everything and listen to an audio message. (To mitigate this issue, some messaging app companies have started adding auto transcription to voice messages.)

People can also make assumptions about a person based solely on their voice, Glowacki says.

“In my classes, we talk a lot about judgments people make about voices, and they are not always accurate or fair. For example, people with higher-pitched voices might not be taken as seriously. Unfortunately, this means women in some cases,” she says.

Glowacki does have some concerns about what effect the rise of voice notes might have on the “overall flow of conversation.”

“When you have a conversation with someone, there really is kind of a dance,” she says. “You have to be mindful not to interrupt the person, and then you have to negotiate awkward pauses. I just wonder if these back-and-forth segmented voice memos take away some of this conversational adeptness that really good communicators possess.”

But for as novel as this rising trend may seem, it does harken back to an older era, Glowacki says, recognizing that older generations are also using the feature.

In a way, “voice memos are just a rehashing of answering machines,” she says.

“It’s the cycle of life,” she says. “We get back to our old ways even if it’s a different platform or medium.”

This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News news.northeastern.edu.

Living organisms consist to a large extent of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) compounds. These have to be taken in with food or, in the case of plants, produced through photosynthesis.

A previously mysterious extension of a starch-degrading enzyme in algae could be a kind of sensor to determine how much nitrogen is currently available. If there is plenty of it, the algal cells quickly release many building blocks for their growth.

The research team led by Dr. Anja Hemschemeier and Dr. Lisa Scholtysek from the Photobiotechnology Group at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, report their new findings in the journal Plant Direct.

A starch-degrading biocatalyst as a nitrogen sensor

The optimal composition of a living cell is made up of a certain ratio of C and N, but the quantities of these elements in our diet and in the environment of plants and algae are usually not that perfectly balanced. Therefore, living organisms must tune their metabolism and chemical composition to the availability of these—and other—chemical building blocks.

In plant-like organisms, C-containing molecules that are not immediately utilized are stored as starch. Various types of biocatalysts—also termed enzymes—release C skeletons from starch when they are needed as building blocks or as energy source. One of these enzymes is alpha-amylase, which Hemschemeier’s research team investigated from the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

In the process, the team made a surprising discovery. “The enzyme has an extension that is not needed for starch degradation,” explains Hemschemeier, who headed the study. “This protein part has already been discovered in a similar form in many different enzymes, where it usually regulates the function of the biocatalyst.

“Commonly, this protein part senses small compounds that play a role in the corresponding metabolic pathway, so that its speed can be adjusted and coordinated with other pathways.”

Lisa Scholtysek, lead author of the study, tested the effect of many different substances on the activity of this amylase. Finally, she identified one that noticeably increased the activity of the enzyme, namely the amino acid glutamine.

This N-containing compound is a building block of proteins. In many organisms, glutamine is also the first product of N assimilation and serves both as the primary N source and as a signal for how much N is available for biosynthetic pathways.

An alpha-amylase as growth booster?

To date, this combination of starch-degrading enzyme and glutamine sensor has not been described in literature. Still, based on bioinformatic analyses conducted by the researchers, many microalgae appear to possess this specific combination.

“Our research is still in its infancy,” says Hemschemeier. “So far, we have studied this effect only at the level of the isolated biocatalyst from Chlamydomonas. An important next step is to study it in living algae.”

However, the researchers have a hypothesis. “It is conceivable that this alpha-amylase registers when a lot of nitrogen is present. Then, it accelerates the release of C scaffolds from starch for the production of N- and C-containing cell components.” This could optimize cell growth when the algae encounter optimal conditions.