Why Are We Still Writing?

From the mid-1900s to the present day, we always envision the future of communication in the same way: audio/visual. Dick Tracy, for example, had a two-way video watch. Ideas like video phones were common futuristic devices even in the late 90s when The Simpsons used it in an episode that envisioned the future. Nowadays, we go for 3-dimensional holograms for that futuristic look (though that idea was present in the '70s when Star Wars came out).

Now we are living in the future. We may not have hovercars, personal jetpacks, or domed cities, but this is definitely the future compared to the 1900s. And yet, when I look at the most common forms of communication, it is all text. Instant messengers, text messages, Twitter and Facebook updates, all are purely text. When we go to email, message boards, and blogs, we still largely see text. Although we do have increasingly sophisticated video technology, we largely don't care about it. Nobody wants video phones. Heck, people don't even like audio communication with their phones. So why is it that everybody thought they wanted video chat and holograms, but all they use is text?

Drawing from personal experiences and anecdotes from friends, I find the same thing coming up: audio/visual communication requires a lot of attention. Imagine being on a webcam and having a conversation. Much like a face-to-face conversation, you are receiving information via the words being said, the inflections of those words, and all of the nonverbal communication like facial expression and body movements. So although you are theoretically free to do other things while chatting, you will be losing a great deal of information. You have to make a decision to either spend all of your attention on the conversation or lose information by not paying full attention.

With text, though, it is permanent and can be read at one's own discretion. It is easy to send, receive, think about, and respond to (or choose not to respond to). The energy you have to put into writing to get as much meaning as possible out of it is far lower than the energy needed for a video conference, and the amount of information you get from either one is not that drastically different. I believe that is why we are still writing: it has the best return on investment of any form of communication. For that reason, I am excited to see the future, both of life in general and of writing in particular. I am happy that my chosen field, though it may change, is not dying any time soon. People still like reading, so a good writer is still useful.