Best way to communicate

A friend of mine mentioned that she feels the best way to communicate with friends is through a phone call. And that internet communication, mainly text chat was way too manipulative as per her experience (I guess some friend might have pissed her off on the internet by being manipulative. Well, then he/she shouldn't be a friend in the first place) . As usual, I dislike generalization of habits to people because each and every person is different and we cannot expect everyone to be the same.

I feel every mode of communication, be it direct face to face, on the telephone or through the internet has its own purpose. Of course, still the best form of communication is a straight face to face and heart to heart talk. But then what happens when distance separates the people? Telephone and the internet serve this purpose of long distance communication. Telephone has the advantage that we can still hear the tonality of the voice of a person which internet chat fails to do (of course, yahoo, gtalk and skype can be used to talk on the internet as well). When telephone calls become costly, that is inter continent calls, then the internet is the best medium of communication.

Frankly, it was orkut that helped me gain contact with many of my friends whom I would not have heard from (bless the person who introduced me to it). And yes to improve our relationships, we need to communicate as much as possible either directly or through the phone. But the important thing is we need to keep in touch even if it is passively through the internet (once again, yahoo, gtalk and skype are closing the gap between calls and chat).

And one more lesson: If a person is manipulative, he/she will be the same whether talking directly, through the phone or the internet. So instead of blaming the internet, maybe we should spend time building good friendships using whatever way is possible.