Language and speech, which create communal or community memory, permit cultural (or Lamarkian) as opposed to biological (or Darwinian) development based on feed-back as opposed to natural-selection alone.
Speech, spoken language, is a technology of presence. Speaker and listener have to be in the same place and time. What advantages and what disadvantages does a information technology based on presence have?
Speech and sight -- what are their relations?
Can you think of a situation in which you might feel more comfortable talking on a telephone than speaking to someone face to face?
Can you think of a situation in which you might feel more comfortable using e-mail than speaking in a group of people?
Over-empjasizing the speech paradigm — that is, over-emphasing the need for simltaneous presence — leads to misusing all other kinds of media.
What, then, are the advantages of absence?
