Richard, 

you really should read up on the importance of the face in human communication (and even human-animal communication), and why extremist islam wants women to hide theirs.

"One of the reasons that people often complain about telephone and email, not to mention social media, is that they do not allow for any non-verbal communication. This means that a huge part of meaning can be lost...On the telephone, for instance, you have to work much harder on conveying your emotional response with your voice, because your face is not visible...In email and social media, we have adopted ‘emojis’ or emoticons to express our emotions."

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/nonverbal-face-voice.html