I recognized a long while back that different people have different preferred communication medium.  If you want to committee with Alice – use the phone, with Bob – use IRC, with Carol – send a fax, David – call a meeting and be sure to provide an agenda, Ed – writes a blog, and Freda – reads books.  And of course there are variations of style; George prefers light and humorous, and Helen insists on serious (including bibliography).  Following thru on this insight is exhausting.  Of course this can be used for evil, as in the “to unsubscribe from our marketing email send a letter to the following address.”  Once you comprehend all this the likelihood of your sinning in this regard rises.

Further nobody cares about your preferred modality; well except those people who happen to prefer the same one.  They are perfectly happy to join in a round of “those people!”  For example, Bill Tozier twitters:

While I was asleep, Santa brought me a new understanding about situation awareness vs. the common prejudice that “only face to face is real.  Where does the common prejudice against multiple modes of communication come from? Twitter is “inauthentic”? Email is a “proxy”? Laziness?  Face to face communication is high bandwidth, but demands inordinate resources as well. Folks who demand conversation are resource-greedy.