Type it out ? Do you mean using pinyin ! Well if you know how to write Hanzi ,it is much better when you communicate with a Chinese , but they understand both Hanzi and Pinyin very well .You better ask the person, they might be different in their preference . 加油 ：）

As a native speaker, I can assure you that 99.999% Chinese communicate with characters. Few people may type pinyin once or twice because their input tools(shu1 ru4 fa3 输入法) goes wrong or their are using a devices without Chinese characters input tools and they need to response quickly. Reading pinyin ,with or without tones, is tiring and pinyin is taught only in China mainland. But I think it's OK to talk in pinyin if a foreigner find Chinese characters difficult.

yes, you should

IF you talk to Chinese on the Internet, you'd better use Hanzi. That's because we seldom use Pinyin to type or write in our daily life. Pinyin is just a tool for us to learn to "read" a Hanzi, and in fact, it's for the children. It is the Hanzi that characters the Chinese culture in a way.