Typing in weightless conditions is tricky, and when you're also performing a task, talking is way, way easier. The back-and-forth is a formal protocol designed to minimise (prevent!) errors, and the rate of communication is rarely the limiting factor, and for many, speaking, even with the repetitions, is faster than typing.
Interesting. It never occurred to me that typing with your hands floating around may not be as easy as on earth.
I was just watching as one crew member was calibrating a camera, probably by using a laptop(?), and he had to repeat a number 3 times till ground copied correctly. I just thought "damn, he could just copy and paste these numbers into a chat session". But then again, why aren't these numbers transmitted automatically in the first place?
It's really, really hard to figure out how to get absolutely every possible thing you might ever want to be accessible all the time. It's really, really easy in a given instance, with hindsight, to say - "Why not just transmit that all anyway?"
Yes, it's a good question, but it's a better question when you think to ask it 10 years before you need the data.
I work remotely with safety-critical systems, and sometimes I curse the lack of foresight on the part of the engineers and designers who came before me. Then I wonder what equipment people will be using 5 years from now to interface with the systems I'm trying to get out the door on time and on budget.
Especially in micro-gravity.
With your hands full.