I like to be able to see body language and the eyes. Messaging is fun but less personal. To be in person with someone new is rare for me unless it is brief. Especially rare to be around men. I have confusing trust issues.
MSN is stupid, especially when you get replys such as "K", and my all time worst "Whatever". That is why I rarely / never use it. Some of the replys are hard to respond to. How do you know what frame of mind the person unless you can see them and read their expression or get a clue from their voice. How do you know whether the thing you are typing out will be well received or not.
There are difficulties in both. Face-to-face you have to deal with more pressure, there is nowhere to hide, no time to think things through, as mentioned above. However, communicating online presents it's own difficulties, as you have no body language to discern therefore you really have to pay extra close attention to the tone, timing and wording to what is written whilst filling in the blanks. I personally favour communicating online as I feel I have more freedom to express myself. If the conversation takes a turn for the worst, I can simply pull the plug on it, and it's over. My most dreaded medium for communicating is via phone. You have the ambiguity of online conversation, but with the real time pressure of face-to-face communication. I feel this is the worst aspects of the two aforementioned mediums rolled into one!