Every time someone wanted to have a call with me, it was so they could push me into something with their whining, or so they could misinterpret what was said without me being able to point at a timestamped sentence. For these reasons I always refuse calls about anything important - and never had any problems solving various business issues over text.
How specifically is text less/not useful?
Above signal flags, text is almost the lowest possible bandwidth form of human-human conversion. It will take you an hour to write something that you could explain to someone in 5 minutes via voice.
Even if you do manage to find the time to write all down, you quickly hit problem 2.
Text is shit for communicating any form of sentiment or emotional valence, which is a pretty critical part of communication, especially when you’re getting into the nuanced ends of any particular topic.
Text is an excellent way of transmitting information. Do this, go there, this is the answer, etc. But unless you have a deep, long-lasting connection with the other person, text will lose a lot.
So much of what's on YouTube is so irritating to me because it's 10 minutes of mostly filler to transmit a few facts that could be read in a minute or less. But I'll listen to a 3 hour conversation between two people who are passionate about history or Lego or whatever and not think anything of it. The emotional valence makes it worthwhile.
Nice comment!
Texts do not convey emotion. Allow verification of nuanced points with simple interjections and interrogatives. The limitation of threads of conversation to simplify discourse through a more direct dialog and rebuttals.
I have had relationships due specifically because texts are really incomplete and poor means of conversation and the other side fails to pick up and acknowledge the severity of the situations I was trying to describe.
If I was forced to work in places where I could not trust that my coworkers and I have each other's backs I feel like I would be very bitter.