TL;DR
A 2014 blog post argues that text remains the most durable, flexible and efficient communication medium, outperforming images, audio and video for many uses. The author supports this with historical and practical examples and responds to readers who note specific cases where audio/visual media are preferable.
What happened
In a 2014 post, a blogger writing as graydon2 laid out a forceful case for prioritizing text whenever possible. The piece argues that written language is the oldest stable communication technology after speech and signing, and highlights its durability—texts can survive for millennia and be preserved in stone. The author emphasizes text’s expressive precision, its ability to encode abstract ideas and nuanced ambiguity, and its efficiency in storage and transmission compared with images and audio. Historical communication milestones are cited to show a pattern of text-first adoption (optical telegraphy, teleprinters, pagers, SMS and early internet services), and the post points to contemporary examples such as large text-based resources and the text-heavy parts of the web. Reader comments expand the discussion: one commenter favors transcripts for time efficiency, while the author counters that text’s strengths scale across many-to-many and asynchronous interactions.
Why it matters
- Design and product teams that prioritize text can benefit from lower bandwidth costs and broader accessibility.
- Text’s searchability, editability and compressibility make it easier to archive, index and repurpose content over time.
- For large-scale, asynchronous and multi-party communication, text supports structures (diffs, quoting, branching) that richer media struggle to replicate.
- Decisions about media formats affect how information is preserved and how future readers can access and analyze it.
Key facts
- The author asserts text is the most powerful and useful communication technology after speech/signing.
- Text is described as durable; the post claims we can read texts dating back roughly five thousand years.
- Text is portrayed as more flexible for conveying precise or complex ideas than images or audio.
- The essay cites historical phases where text-centric systems preceded richer media: optical telegraphy (circa 1790), electrical telegraphs, teleprinters, pagers, SMS and early internet services.
- The author contends many efficient parts of the web remain text-centric and says one can download all of Wikipedia onto an average smartphone.
- Text supports algorithmic treatments: indexing, searching, diffing, summarizing, filtering and translation, per the post.
- Reader comments include a view that transcripts save human time versus audio/video; the author acknowledges trade-offs but defends text’s aggregate advantages.
What to watch next
- How major social platforms balance text and rich media formats in conversations and archiving (the post references Tumblr and Facebook as places where images and text play different roles).
- Trends in tools and services that preserve or prioritize text-first content (examples in the post include SMS, pagers, teletext and text-heavy web services).
- not confirmed in the source
Quick glossary
- Text: Written or typed language used to record and transmit ideas, often compact, searchable and editable.
- Asynchronous communication: Exchanges where participants do not need to be present at the same time, such as email or forum posts.
- Optical telegraph: A pre-electrical signaling system that transmitted textual messages via visual signals across distances.
- Teleprinter: An electromechanical device that sent and received typed messages over communication lines.
- Diffing: Comparing two versions of text to identify changes or differences between them.
Reader FAQ
Why does the author favor text over images or video?
The author argues text is more durable, precise, efficient in storage and transmission, and better suited to indexing, editing and asynchronous group interactions.
Does the post dismiss images and audio entirely?
No. The author acknowledges that images and audio have advantages—especially for emotional or immediate visual communication—but maintains text is preferable in most aggregate, archival and many-to-many contexts.
Are claims about historical communication technologies supported?
The post cites a sequence of text-first systems (optical telegraph, electrical telegraphs, teleprinters, pagers, SMS, early web services) to illustrate a historical pattern.
Is it proven that text is always superior today?
not confirmed in the source
Recent Entries Archive Reading Network Tags Memories Profile frog hop always bet on text always bet on text Oct. 13th, 2014 12:34 pm graydon2 I figured I should just post…
Sources
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