TL;DR
Use Verbal/Written communication appropriately. Have a purpose for every communication and based on that choose the appropriate medium.
Thoughts :
Communication is one of the most important aspect of our everyday life. We communicate to understand, assist, or help each other.
Here is a random order, in which I think we started communication
– Hand Signals
– Drawing the hand signals
– Drawing and sending those hand signals
– Invented some sounds to replace the hand signals
– Standardized these sounds
– Converted these sounds into symbols / characters
– Improved on these characters and standardized these sounds
– Language was invented
So now we have two forms of communication
Vocal & written ( I am excluding Body language here )
For Distant people, we invented Postal Mail ( Email/Fax) & Telephone to communicate efficiently. Both of them have different purposes to communicate. Usually, I have came across when they are not used at the right time, which causes problems. I often find hard to balance between both of them as well, since we tend to use the easiest tool at that point of time. Such as we will call and leave a voicemail, when we know that the person will not be available on desk. We will draft an email in a tone that the other person feels bad. In addition, we also might call the person and poorly communicate a deal to give our self-benefit of doubt.
All of these are wrong practices and should be avoided. I have not yet mastered this and constantly try to improve based on feedback and results. Just make sure, the purpose of communication have been achieved.