For me, face to face interaction is always preferable to phone, text-message, forum post, email, or chatroom.
Communicating without facial expressions, gestures, and spontaneous reactions to the immediate environment is somewhat stifling to me, and I simply don't have enough internal material to go off of for long periods of time.
I need to replenish the supply of thoughts/ideas/reflections with something new in the present, or I get bored pretty fast.
There are certain things I often think about when I'm alone, but I'm not eager to talk about them unless I can get an immediate, face to face, personal response.
And generally---as far as the audience goes---the more the merrier.
In order of preference, I'd put chat room first, then phone, then forum post, then text-message, then email.
I think all this would describe a typical Extravert, but I won't make any definitive statements about that.