I probably do 1/10th the amount of phone calls than 15 years ago. Overall, the trend of less communication by speech has improved my overall quality of life.
That said, the advantages of text-vs-talk depends on the relationship.
There are certain people that I prefer to keep in 100% text mode. When they call, their chats have little substance. My mind wanders and I wish they would get to the point. Since most can't touch type, if they are forced to communicate by email or SMS text, they are succinct and get to the point!. Technology is a beautiful thing.
But there are also others who I wish I had more frequent chats with. They have humour that makes me laugh and their upbeat tone doesn't translate into text. But they are busy with families, etc and so we've settled into twice-a-year catch up sessions.
Overall, I still prefer text over speech. I remember that there were old articles decades ago lamenting that "we used to write long form letters to each other and the new fangled phone has killed that off." Back then, there was a value judgement in that letters were somehow "better" than phones.
The amount of time it took to get a letter across the country/world also made a difference to their signal to noise ratio. It especially comes across in the letters written by thoughtful people.
You could compare it to speech making or say a TED talk. The speaker knows she has one shot to make a mark, so a lot more effort goes into it. And it ends up leaving a mark.
That said, the advantages of text-vs-talk depends on the relationship.
There are certain people that I prefer to keep in 100% text mode. When they call, their chats have little substance. My mind wanders and I wish they would get to the point. Since most can't touch type, if they are forced to communicate by email or SMS text, they are succinct and get to the point!. Technology is a beautiful thing.
But there are also others who I wish I had more frequent chats with. They have humour that makes me laugh and their upbeat tone doesn't translate into text. But they are busy with families, etc and so we've settled into twice-a-year catch up sessions.
Overall, I still prefer text over speech. I remember that there were old articles decades ago lamenting that "we used to write long form letters to each other and the new fangled phone has killed that off." Back then, there was a value judgement in that letters were somehow "better" than phones.