Writing permits asynchronous communication. Because it does not base the act of communication upon presence, it does not require the person communicating to be in either the same place or the same time as the person receiving the communication. The one communicating information places it in a form that permits someone else to receive it later. Writing, printing, cinema, and video are all forms of asynchronous communication.
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.
Writing allows greater precision in communicating ideas.
Writing allows logic and other forms of complex thought.
Yes, but who benefits?
Return to lectures by George P. Landow