"Voice is the new killer app !" recently exclaimed Chris Sambar, vice-president of the giant american telecoms AT & T's, while the scientific studies are constantly on guard against the all-screen, and the ubiquity of images in our lives. After the Internet writing, then the Internet video, the world would therefore be in the third era of the digital, the Internet voice ? It is in any case the conviction of Mathieu Gallet, ex-director of the INA, former president of Radio France, today founder and president of the platform of podcasts Majelan. Interview.

The Point : You have completed this book in full containment, whereas the number of telephone calls – traditional and via the applications, and the use of video and voice knew a real explosion. What observation is he born ?

Mathieu Gallet : My intuition is more ancient, it dates from 2017. I was then president of Radio France, and I brought my team in California and up to Seattle to meet both major groups such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, but also start-ups and investment funds. Amazon was working on the development of its virtual personal assistant, Alexa, who is released a year and a half later in France. It is true that when one has seen this object and all the possibilities that it was going to be able to offer, we all sensed that the next revolution that was going on in our digital era, would be that of the audio.

You do not hesitate to oppose the voice on the screen, even going so far as to entitle a chapter " the Voice vs. Screen : the match of the century ". Is it really necessary to turn back-to-back ? One does it not work without the other ?

In our society, caught by the screens, the issue of the alternative voice arises. To think that we will be able to totally eliminate the screens is a vain struggle. But it is all a question of proportion. One of the great challenges of the coming years will be to limit the number of hours that children spend in front of the screen. For the past few years, the researchers agree that overexposure is harmful to the cognitive development, especially among young people. While the voice, it, the boost. An anthropologist from the university of Wisconsin, Leslie Seltzer, has conducted a study to exciting about it. She placed the young girls of 12 years old in a stressful situation, namely the resolution of math problems in front of an audience. This exercise raises their stress and cortisol levels. They were then divided into three groups. In the first, the girls were comforted by their mother, physically present. Members of the second group have not seen their mother, but a movie. Finally, the third group was able to have access to a telephone with their mother at the end of the wire. The results show that the first and the third group have higher rates of cortisol and oxytocin, similar. Amazing, the only maternal voice has therefore played the same role as the physical presence of the mother.

The voice reassures, but it also helps to develop the imagination and plays an important role in the fixing of memories...

indeed. Auditory memory follows us our whole life, and it is very lively in the first few years. I remember well the tales on audio cassettes that we listened to small, narrated by the inimitable voice of Marlene Jobert. Oddly enough, I also have many more memories of the story of the Aristocats told by Louis de Funès and that we listen to in a loop during car journeys, that of the cartoon from Disney that came out in 1971. Guided by the voice, the imagination is not forced, it is completely free to be included at the discretion of the decorations, the look of the characters. There is a dimension that is very personal, very intimate : each one becomes his own director.

You attract attention to a curious paradox. The digital era in which we live goes away little by little from its origins : the fingers, the touch, the touch-screen...

In a few years, keyboards we seem totally obsolete. Today, you can do a search on Google by voice recognition, publish a tweet, audio, order a train ticket on the chatbot of the SNCF, or even do your shopping in dictating your list at the site of the Crossroads. Far from being a gadget intended for those geeks, I think the audio is invested with a new power, including social. For the elderly, who do not see anything on a screen, or populations who do not master French well, these tools are a tremendous help.

Your platform podcast, Majelan, initiated in 2018 with the founder and former ceo of Wynd, Arthur Perticoz, operates today a turning point, by offering a 100 % pay-for content is 100 % original, most of them devoted to personal accomplishment. Why this choice ?

one of The big differences between the podcast and the radio, is that Médiamétrie extent the audience shares every three months, so that the platforms can know in real time the usage data of their users : what do they listen to ? How long and at what time ? It is extremely valuable, and this has enabled us in effect to operate in a shifting of content around the development staff, since these are the programs most watched by our subscribers. Attention, it is not a question of modules to the u.s., such as "10 exercises to avoid back pain" or " understand Everything about the economy in 10 minutes." But instead of master class, proposed by specialists who bring their expertise and their testimony on a specific topic. We welcome for example the head of the higher starred in the world, Anne-Sophie Pic, but also the director, Michel Hazanavicius, or even the press boss Franck Annese.

Mathieu Gallet, The New Power of the voice, Public Debates, 220 pages, 18 €.