"We may well be entering a new oral age, for we now have the means to preserve information possessed by no previous generation. We have audio and video cassette libraries, computers, memory banks-everything is taped and recorded. Immediate communication fills our space now more than the function of preservation. Who writes a letter, when you can phone? The air is full of sound-from transistors, cassettes, and TV sets. It is full of music and songs and various forms of oral communication, often of a low common denominator. True, the technical possibility of transmitting such sounds has created new borders."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shulamith_Hareven