The organisation I have managed for the past 18 months experienced exactly the same.
We started with a blog, which is how the organisation was formed, and used this as a mechanism to show our development to, and invite people from, across the local region and the UK.
This proved to be successful as an engagement tool, and also a good place to share ideas, comments, and information.

Alongside this, we held monthly meetings for all members to attend to meet, and exchange more ideas, and turn the blog comments into real action.
The regular meetings may as well have been a lecture- lots of people attended, but very few really spoke their minds- the pressure of speaking in front of 50 or so “strangers” was too great.

So, the meetings became bi-monthly, and now there are much smaller sub-team meetings happening, with 6 team leaders attending a monthly progress meeting with the management team and relaying information.

The really beneficial communication exchanges take place on the members discussion forum- topics are discussed openly, and frank discussions lead to more action, with greater speed and better effectiveness, simply because of the immediacy of reporting updates to all members, in a written format.

So, taking this into account, I can confirm that the study mentioned above is 100% true in my experience also.
As for me, I am also a “let me see your eyes” person, but I guess that’s because ever since high school, I’ve been very used to public speaking and am very comfortable meeting new people and holding discussions.
However, since being ‘involved’ with social media platforms of communication, I soon realised that it takes all kinds of characters to build the strength of a network in any form- as long as that happens for the common good, I’m all for it.