I agree. A great deal of social communicative data that is crucial to make meaningful connections is lost online. Even people who are good at reading and writing, and that's not very many, are deprived of a lot of real-time information that is automatically communicated in person, like tone, eye contact, facial positioning, and other signals. Humans are heavily dependent on those cues for successful interaction.

Further, the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory [0] applies -- taking away the complex risk calculations involved in face-to-face conversations causes people to discard social inhibitors like civility rather quickly.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/RkSu1kn.jpg