What happened to picking up the phone?

In today's society there are a lot of crutches for not talking with someone face to face. There are social networking sites such as facebook, myspace, and twitter. These are good examples of social networking sites that take away from face to face communication but what about good old text messaging. Text messaging has changed the way so many of us live our lives. The question is are we forgetting how to talk to someone face to face? IT seems to me that people are using text messaging to do everything from asking someone out on a date to wishing them happy birthday. I'm not saying I don't do it because today I personally wished someone a happy birthday via text message. I didn't feel like actually picking up the phone to wish this person a happy birthday so text messaging was the next best thing. When you think about it this can't be good for our communication skills. Are we going to forget how to talk to someone about something serious or even be able to pick up the phone to talk to them about it? I think that todays society is missing out on something very special and that special thing is communicating with someone face to face.