There’s something about face-to-face communication that email, or any text-based communication for that matter, just can’t top. Personal communication is best, whether you know the person or not. You should never underestimate the power of face-to-face communication.
Body language is extremely important when it comes to communication. It’s not just how you say something, but also your facial expressions and body posture. All of these cues are lost in emails. Humans still need intimate face-to-face encounters to build more authentic and trustworthy relationships.
Face-to-face meetings are usually shorter than conference calls, for example. That’s probably because when on them, everyone usually sits there quietly with their phones on mute until the discussion is over. I’ve been guilty of this numerous times.
Since you can’t pick-up on body language whilst you’re not face-to-face, you can’t see how disengaged the audience is. This action can keep you rambling on while the attendees start to drift in and out. With face-to-face situations, you can pick-up these non-verbal cues, which in turn pressures you to get directly to the point.
