The pandemic's forced adoption of video calls was supposed to permanently shift communication toward video. Instead, it produced a backlash that researchers have called "Zoom fatigue" — a documented phenomenon of video call exhaustion that drove many users back toward text-based communication. Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab published research in 2021 identifying four mechanisms of Zoom fatigue: excessive eye contact (faces abnormally large and close), self-monitoring through constant self-view, reduced mobility (tethered to the camera frame), and increased cognitive load (interpreting non-verbal cues at higher fidelity than typical interaction requires).
The Cognitive Load Argument for Text
Text communication, counterintuitively, can be less cognitively demanding than video for many interaction types. In text, you process one channel (words) rather than multiple simultaneous channels (words, facial expression, tone, background, self-image). Reading is faster than listening — you can skim text at roughly 250 words per minute versus the 125–150 words per minute of natural speech. And asynchronous text allows composition time that real-time video does not. For substantive communication — sharing information, working through ideas, emotional processing — many users find text produces higher-quality outcomes than video.
Gen Z's Text Preference
Research on Gen Z communication preferences consistently finds a strong preference for text over voice and video in everyday social communication. A 2023 survey by Morning Consult found that 60% of Gen Z preferred texting for social communication, compared to 40% of Millennials and 25% of Gen X. The preference is not primarily about technology comfort — Gen Z is comfortable with video. It is about the qualities of text: asynchronous options, composable responses, less performative pressure, and the directness of written expression when done well.
Text's Unique Expressive Possibilities
Text is not simply a degraded form of in-person communication — it is a different medium with its own expressive possibilities. Careful word choice, punctuation as emotional signal, the craft of a well-constructed message, the ability to think before responding — these are qualities that text enables and voice/video does not. The best text-based communicators develop a genuine literary quality in their communication: concise, precise, and emotionally resonant in ways that spontaneous speech rarely achieves. The text renaissance is partly a recognition that some of the best communication is simply written.