I think it's important to have distance for a while so that both people have time to process things. Then when both people are ready you can be friends. Otherwise in my experience its hard to change from the relationship to friendship dynamic. It might be harder not to speak to the person for a while than to just continue as things are, but I think most people need that time to actually move on. Especially if a lot of your conversation is online as there might not be a whole lot of difference between friendship and relationship in the way you interact which means you aren't really moving on and makes it hard to truly be friends with both people just kind of hanging on to avoid the breakup feelings/missing that person etc. Just my experience though.