Well, I wouldn't say that all advancements or improvements are better than those which are "good enough". Most things that are "good enough" tend to have less environmental impact than those which are suppose to improve and ease our lives. (Take the history of technology & pollution)
Of corse Voice and Video chat have very few negative qualities over Text chat. They DO however distract from intellectual conversation and encourage social patterns primarily based on sexual behavior, same as those we see in the dreaded RL. It's a lot easier talking to someone intellectually about a topic, even if they are hideous to look at or listen to, over plain text.
I can imagine if mIRC had Voice/Video integration, after a while it might become the norm for people to expect you to identify yourself by voice, just to make sure you are REALLY Male/Female or a matured adult and not a squeaky packet kiddy... before you can get opped or before you are taken seriously in a conversation. This has its advantages, but it takes away a level of privacy and escape, and distracts again from the flow of intellect and thought in words... allowing us to fall back on our common stereotypes that older people are naturally smarter and younger people are naturally ignorable, and leads way to racial stereotypes aswell.
Whenever you introduce something new into an environment, it's going to have some level of impact. Even /me and abbvs like LOL & ROFL and emote-icons have severely impacted the way we think and communicate in text today. I personally use :[b][/b]) a lot in chat, it enables me to express so many feelings and allows me to get away with saying things sarcastically while safely conveying that sarcasm. Perhaps I would chat more seriously/intelligently without them? But now I'm getting off topic.
I don't disagree with Xeno-ism. I believe it's always good to move slowly with any advancements, and test the waters before stirring things up that were "good enough".
- Raccoon
