> How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

A better question is how long to say something that is well thought out and matters vs. how long to write something that is well thought out and matters. I have found that talking leads to lots of talking with little real substance unless it is meant to be a brainstorm session. And even then, writing ideas down before hand help to quickly get to the sticking points rather than bike shedding over something trivial and wasting everyones time.

Writing out a page long email forces the writer to think through and address their idea more seriously up front. This is why Bezos famously requires a written memo for a new idea before the meeting [0].

[0] http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-writing...

> How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

How long to deliver a speech. How long to send a one-sentence IM?

> Text is the least efficient of all forms of commutations.

Less efficient than semaphore or smoke signals?

In reality, text is very efficient form of communication, and it has the benefit of being asynchronous.

How long do the sound waves from speech persist in a gaseous medium, or the often equally gaseous white matter between your ears? How long does an email, backed up and archived by sender, recipient, archiving software, compliance department, etc, etc persist.

People tend to actually think before they write something down that will last forever. Much less so when they're flapping their gums in real-time. High quality, premeditated communication trumps low-quality, off-the-cuff communication, for me, anyway.

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