A piece of writing pervades all of time. That's the significance of the written word over the spoken word. The feeling of permanence, of making a mark, is one that humans have sought after for thousands of years. Writing gives anyone this power. In reflecting on the distant past and viewing the sources, every document carries the same weight. Without writing, learning almost anything would be incredibly difficult. Any knowledge would have to be passed on orally which could become very troublesome for information that's incredibly complex. Many things wouldn't have come into existence due to the lack of accumulation of knowledge, such as computers, cars, planes, etc. Advancement would be incredibly difficult. Any project or advancement in Science would have to be done in around a generation unless the work could be directly passed on which, even then, would make it incredibly difficult. Many mathematics problem would have remained unsolved as it's taken generations of mathematicians to work on these problems and it's sometimes been the case that these problems were completed hundreds of years after being posed, with work done on them in between which would have been very difficult to have been done without writing (depending on the complexity and immensity of the problem). It would be difficulty to trust the reliability of any information you received about the past as it would have had to be passed through the mouths of hundreds of people (depending on how far back you're asking about) and this would add noise to the facts and perhaps even misinformation. This would change my life dramatically. If we were to not have writing, any math that I would have learned would have had to have been spoken to me and understood and rustled with in my head. Depending on what falls under the category of "writing", it may have even been impossible for any advancements in Science to have been made as many if not all would have required calculation that would have not been possible in one's head. This is a roadblock that would have even have prevented safe houses and shelters from being built. There really isn't any doubt that writing was not crucial (if not the most essential thing) to human development and prospering.