In my opinion, chatting and joking with others is among the best possible reasons to focus on live.
It's both entertaining and strategically useful. You can get extremely valuable personality reads, while also preventing impatience in yourself by keeping you amused with banter and/or general chat.
That said, it's all about what YOU want.
Different people, different comfort zones.
As an avid talker and a thoroughly read-centric player, however, I will say that socially active types tend to be a lot harder to read than silent ones.
When you're quiet and still, every move and every word is magnified against the backdrop of your quiet nature. When you're active in both categories, however, tons of stuff gets buried by the sheer volume of your actions.
In that sense, being social at the table - like in life - often translate to an advantage.
Just my two cents.
