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Most distributed work requires mediated communication, but the appropriate use of mediated, as compared with face-to-face, communication is not well understood. From our ethnographic research on workplace communication, we characterize unique aspects of faceto-face communication. Face-to-face communication supports touch, shared activities, eating and drinking together, as well as informal interaction and attention management. We argue that these activities are crucial for sustaining the social relationships that make distributed work possible. We contrast these social aspects of communication with the informational aspects emphasized by traditional communication theories, arguing that social linkages are a precondition of information exchange. We document the disadvantages of face-to-face communication—that it can be disruptive, expensive, and effortful—and we describe when mediated …