New Scientist
Image: mag3737
You need driving directions. Do you pick up the phone or shoot your buddies an email?
Amid an increasing range of text-based options such as email and text messaging, Herbert Clark and colleagues at Stanford University in California wondered if there were still times when people prefer good old-fashioned talk. They presented 69 university students with two scenarios – giving a pal driving directions and revising a paper with two other people – and asked which mode of communication they would use.
With directions, 62 per cent said speech, because it’s important to be able to answer questions from the driver, which can cost time and money using text. But for discussion of a paper, 63 per cent chose text because of its unbeatable clarity. The results were presented at a cognitive science meeting last week.
