Visual cues aside, there are two major hurdles, IMHO, that impede fully embracing voice by users in a teaching/learning/group situation: 1) the lack of sufficient technical savvy which can often lead to poor sound quality or various feedback issues for an individual’s transmission, and 2) underdeveloped social etiquette in the context of hands-free VoIP. The latter tends to introduce such things as “back channel talking” (say, to someone else in the physical room), amplified eating/drinking noises, scrapes and scratches as the mic is scuffed across the face or mouth, … These sounds can be jarring to an in-progress discussion/presentation and often are very distracting.

I’m not surprised by the survey’s VoIP results. Depending on the situation, VoIP in SL can “get in the way” as much as cell phones and pagers do in a movie theater. But we’re learning.