I feel like this is an extreme reduction of actual communication impediments and/or preferences. I, personally, have a lot of anxiety about my real-time verbal communication. I grew up in a time well before texting, and yet, making phone calls continues to be difficult for me. I do it constantly at my job, but no level of experience has taken that anxiety away. You may call that emotionally stunted, but what makes it so? It seems to me to be a reasonable reaction to the world we live in and the energy that is required to engage.

I am a great public speaker, assuming that I’ve had time to prepare. The difference for me lies in the reaction time. When I send a text or email, I don’t have the pressure to respond instantly which allows me to create a well thought-out and appropriate response that often provides an actual solution to the problem presented instead of stilted responses about how I’ll look into that and get back to you. You never know what someone is going to bring up, so you don’t always know how to prepare. Some people are better on the page than they are verbally. Personal relationships with the person on the phone make it easier, but not as easy as a text message.

You sound like an extroverted person. Do you feel energized after talking to others? If so, that’s great, but remember that for others, where you gain energy, they lose it. Communication and engagement are exhausting for many people. Some people are very good at quick responses, but that doesn’t mean that they are right. It doesn’t mean they are wrong either, but not everyone has that particular skill set, just as others aren’t as skilled at writing.

To say that people are emotionally stunted or socially immature because they prefer one method of communication over another implies that your method is the best method, and all others need to conform. Why? It’s a preference. Neither is wrong, and forcing others to conform to your arbitrary standards is both silly and impeding for many. Telling people to buck up doesn’t solve the issue, and just makes it seem like a personal failing when likely these people just actually give a crap about their social standing and don’t want to put their energy into a verbal battle with someone who thinks they are great at this aggressive version of conversation.

And no, not all conversations are aggressive, but many of us have learned that it’s more common than you’d expect and that it’s extremely difficult to participate in such a conversation.

My point here is that you shouldn’t minimalize people because they don’t prefer phone calls. Most of the time, we’re competent adults with different preferences, and an ad hominem attack is completely unnecessary, just as an attack on your grammar would be similarly unhelpful and pedantic. Success is not built on or defined by your personal preferences.