I prefer whatever is more efficient too, and text is great. For example, generally speaking, I prefer text to a video that is longer than maybe 30 seconds, because reading is random access and I can skip to what I want.

But as a universal statement, I'm pretty sure the above comment is factually inaccurate. Certainly for large classes of information, visuals are more efficient. For example, a graph of year-by-year unemployment rates in the 20th century is far more efficient than a list of numbers and years. Similarly, a photo can convey information that would take pages and pages of text.

Graphs are also extremely specific, and very easy for people to misinterpret/get misled by. The specificity of graphs also means that most forms of information cannot be conveyed that way, and so it is a limited tool.