Silent Planet: Effects of Natural Psionic Evolution on Communication Tech?

"Imagine that. A planet teeming with life, entwined with one another with mere thought and nothing more. A silent harmony, a quiet world."

Context

Through some still unknown science, and on this planet alone, psionics have developed naturally in all life from the smallest insect to the advanced, sapient species that calls it home through evolution.

For the latter, ability to "˜speak' to one another through thought is as natural as making our own vocalizations, while emotional tells are communicated with subtle body language and scents understood only by them. For those not of their species, the race in question will prefix with transmitted thoughts with an emotive statement to make up for perceived lack of tone.

They did develop a written language too, but most prefer the intimacy that comes with mind-to-mind linking. They can widen their range of transmission, like how we raise our own voices to talk to crowds, but this has a limited range like private linking does. Assume this limit mimics vocalized speech ranges (like talking vs yelling) perceptible by the human ear at distances in terms of clarity.

The question in question

If this species can only communicate through range-limited transmissible thoughts, writing, and body language, what effect does this have on the development of technology like radios and phones? Would they even be able to use them?

posted over 4 years ago

Millennium‭

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