Think of your grandma or grandpa. Do you hear their voice? It’s probably slow, melodic, and maybe even a little crackly. Chances are they didn’t always sound this way. This excellent story from Upvoted, a Reddit publication, explains that our voices don’t just change during puberty. They continue to shift over time—often men’s pitches get higher, while women’s lower by the time they can get a senior discount. Younger people’s voices tend to sound more animated in part because their vocal chords can move faster, and they have more vocal endurance, which might explain why you couldn’t be dragged off the phone as a teen. But the change isn’t just physiological—turns out culture plays an important role as well.