10 ms·

Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

113 points by fraqed 6y ago

tomrod 6y ago
Two thoughts: 1. In my experience, I worked with a group that was adversarial until we began to use video conferencing and could see each other. The relationship became better after that (it was an internal validation group that was in another location). We could see each other and no quality of work was impacted. We ceased to be each other's boogeyman. 2. Many folks experienced video conferencing the first time at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which is not representative of normal times. I reckon that this singular view isn't capturing a lot of things.
- 12bits 6y ago
  Regarding point 2 “Canadian research on "computer-mediated communication," begun long before the current lockdown, shows video chat is an inadequate substitute for real-life interaction. The real thing, dependant on non-verbal cues, is extraordinarily more effective in creating rapport and getting ideas across.”
  - havelhovel 6y ago
    The article is deliberately vague on actual research, and it appears that “computer-mediated communication“ may only be referring to Roghanizad‘s 2017 paper on email communication.
capnahab 6y ago
I am a surgeon, hospitals are seizing the online video call as a new miracle cost saver. Whilst some consultations are OK for routine encounters eg organising tests, when it comes to discussing surgery most patients value seeing the surgeon.
- dawg- 6y ago
  My dad is a Physical Therapist, and believe it or not they are pushing for PTs to do telehealth. It kind of sounds like a pipe dream to me seeing as how hands-on the profession is. I mean a big part of the job is that you literally have to touch people and move their joints around for them.
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    I personally believe Physical Therapy is a field ripe for innovation, but I don't think that's quite it.
- LinuxBender 6y ago
  I agree with this. If I needed a surgeon, I most certainly would not be using video as I do not have CT/X-ray/Ultrasound at home. I would love to have my own ultrasound. I predict some day there will be a low cost portable unit that allows people to upload ultrasound images in a standard format. Same goes for epigentic methylation. Today the equipment takes up half a room. I have been getting voice mails daily from my doctors office to do a zoom call for a routine checkup. They appear desperate for business.
wcoenen 6y ago
Where is the research paper that found this "brain function short circuit"? The CBC article doesn't shed much light on the claim made in the title, and seems to link to a few different older papers.
- dawg- 6y ago
  Any time brains are compared to electronics, be skeptical.
kevincox 6y ago
I don't think this is a surprise for many people who have been working with people in different offices for a while. I don't have any hard evidence but from my experience you can work with people in other offices for months, often getting the feeling that formality and lack of trust was getting in the way. But then I burn a ton of fossil fuels to fly over and spend a couple of days with them in person and the discussion changes dramatically. It feels so silly that you need to damage the environment and spend so much money for something that logically seems the same. I am looking at someone's face and talking. But it works, it is so unreasonably effective that from time to time I need to fly just to see a colleague in person.
- r_c_a_d 6y ago
  My experience is that after you have met someone once (for more than a few minutes) then video calls work a lot better than with people you have never met. I guess you develop some degree of trust (and a stronger mental model) during a meeting that persists afterwards.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > you develop some degree of trust (and a stronger mental model) For me, the former flows from the latter. When I meet in person, there is eventually a moment when I get a click feeling. Following that, a person's behavior becomes more predictable. Or at the very least explainable. That leads to comfort, which is a commercial substitute for trust. That click take me a long time reach on the phone. For whatever reason, it has never happened over video chat.
  - dr_zoidberg 6y ago
    With one of my best friends we met playing online games and we developed trust between each other by force of voicechat and game-specific trust-based mechanics (remember those Portal 2 game trailers?[0] Well that kind of stuff, but along many different online games). When we met in person it was like we'd known each other for years because we had known each other for years. I think the issue here could be related to the dissonance of seeing a face, the brain expecting eye contact, but being totally unable to get it because of technological limitations. Since the brain doesn't have any other "source of trust" for that face (be that the voice, past behavior/experiences, having met that person to being with) it clicks the "do not trust (entirely)" response. Of course I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist/neurological MD and I'm talking entirely from my experience. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMSAzZ76EU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMSAzZ76EU
leonardteo 6y ago
It's funny that the original title for this article on CBC was actually "Zoom chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust: Don Pittis | CBC News" and the article only mentioned Zoom. :) They changed the title and edited I guess after people pointed out that the research itself was not Zoom specific. I'm amazed how Zoom has become synonomous with "video conferencing" when there are so many other viable solutions available.
- sosuke 6y ago
  I completely agree. I had never heard of Zoom before this outbreak. It was always some other small video conferencing solution or GotoMeeting if it was official business.
  - stephenhuey 6y ago
    I’ve heard their name on NPR ads in Houston for years and even tried them once years ago but never knew of anyone else using them. I just assumed they were about the same as other solutions but were trying to ramp up with VC money.
- dawg- 6y ago
  I could see Zoom ending up like Kleenex or Jet Ski or Crock-Pot or Chapstick, where the brand name becomes the word for the thing itself. Edit because I googled it for more examples and couldn't help myself: Tupperware, Band-Aids, Post-It, Slip n Slide, Xerox, Velcro, Weed Eater, Scotch Tape, Q-Tips, Rollerblades, Jacuzzi, Bubble Wrap.....
  - tantalor 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
  - dmd 6y ago
    A few days ago this gem appeared in my inbox: "Hey folks, we had trouble setting up the Cisco zoom this meeting so we're switching to a Google zoom, here's the link"
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
I've noticed that it takes a different effort to communicate digitally than in-person. I can talk to a person in a car as I drive, no problem. But talk (even hands-free) over a phone and it takes a lot more attention. As accident statistics point out. Why is this? I think we're wired to interact in-person. When we try to talk to a person we can't sense directly, we have to build a brain model of them. That takes quite a bit more effort. As an experiment I tried putting my hand up to block my passenger from view as I drove. Immediately I could tell I was paying less attention to the road, vividly. Just having them out of view, even peripherally, made for a different experience.
- chadlavi 6y ago
  this is slightly different from the problem of not seeing someone, but the fact that video chat software demands a walkie-talkie style "you talk, then I talk, then you talk" style of conversation is very difficult. Normal human conversation includes a lot of natural (and sometimes productive) cross-talk.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Agreed! I was part of a product team that build Sococo Teamspace, including a video chat that allowed interruption. Everybody could talk at once, and still hear everyone else. It made an amazing difference.
- hamandcheese 6y ago
  For driving-and-talking specifically, I remember reading somewhere that when you need to pause for a second and focus on driving, it’s obvious why to a passenger and they can preemptively stop talking, but not obvious to someone on the phone. The person on the phone has no context and will keep talking in your ear as you try to maneuver through a stressful situation.
motohagiography 6y ago
Couldn't help but wonder whether stereoscopic cameras might affect this somehow, and it would be interesting to hear anecdotes of whether that makes a difference. Orthogonaly, I worked in an environment some years ago that had zoom sessions in %90 of all meetings, and the trust level between teams on zoom was low. There were company culture reasons for it, as arguably internecine conflict is necessarily a leadership gap, but the zoom medium itself advantaged misrepresentation in a way that email, slack and even conference calls did not. The difference between video and audio calls was that with just audio, someone cannot use their counterparty's isolation to lie because they can't be sure there is nobody else there. On ephemeral video, someone in an empty room is already atomized, and the power dynamic changes. I remember reading a bunch of critical theory about art from the 80's and 90's about the effect of framing, the gaze of the camera, the relationship between subjects and observers, and how people relate to images. When you are on camera and seeing yourself reflected in a screen without a lot of fidelity, it creates a feeling of uncannyness, and you are made self-conscious, which has consequences to the power dynamic of the conversation. It can set up perfect storm conditions for people whose personalities are given to reflexive or defensive lies. We behave differently when they are being observed or recorded. I used to always use the camera, but since the lockdown, I have been dialing in to conferences because the uncertainty of the audio connection is leveling. For personal acquaintences, I use the camera, but if there is a power difference, I use audio. The uncanny effect of video causing self consciousness that brings out defensive traits, which cause mistrust in relationships could just be an "uncanny valley," effect, hence my initial question of whether stereoscopic cameras might change the effect, or maybe exacerbate it. It's also possible that offsetting your camera angle so that you both are being seen to view the same thing from different angles, as though you are discussing some third party object, might improve comfort levels instead of the dead-on positioning of laptop cameras. If I stared at my dog the way people look into their cameras, he'd eventually attack me or someone else, it's possible the camera positioning we use for video conferencing creates the same kind of confrontational/defensive frame. A portrait photographer could have some insight into this I'm sure.
okasaki 6y ago
Worthless clickbait, article and research.
tompagenet2 6y ago
I do wonder whether video calls have become the next reading, television or video games - this horror that will destroy people's brains. It all feels rather reactionary. Surely different forms of communication work for different people in different circumstances. We can't make these wide pronouncements.
jacknews 6y ago
There's little doubt that face-to-face communication is more 'human' than video chat, and better for building rapport and intimacy. But where is the evidence that video-only (or audio, or text) is bad for the workplace? It could actually be a 'leveler', and in fact better, if it reduces cliques, collusion, physical intimidation, etc, and therefore fosters more open and widespread collaboration.
vorpalhex 6y ago
I suspect a lot of it is quality and UI/UX woes. In a default video app you struggle to see everyone, only one speaker can be heard clearly and usually there's audio/video sync issues. Add a sprinkle of bad hardware and suddenly it's more like talking to a robot over dialup than any semblance of a conversation. On the other hand, have the participants use good hardware, high quality connections and fix the audio issues and the problems greatly get reduced. Anecdotally, comparing my work meetings to my video-chat social calls seems to reinforce this. Work folks typically use just their laptop and have questionable wireless, and we use Google Meet which seems to get worse with every update especially on the audio front. Meanwhile the social group is primarily streamers with high end cameras and microphones and better networking, which when combined with Discords significantly improved audio muxing dramatically improves call quality and reduces "Zoom fatigue".
xwdv 6y ago
I wonder what the effect might be if you crop off a 40% of a person's face vertically, such that you are only seeing one eye and a bit more than half their nose and mouth.
KallDrexx 6y ago
My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.
- enobrev 6y ago
  I don't think I'll be trying this, but it's a really interesting DIY solution to ensuring eye contact when video conferencing. https://youtu.be/2AecAXinars https://youtu.be/2AecAXinars
  - cryptoz 6y ago
    Before I clicked I wondered why you wouldn't be trying it. Understood, I suppose I won't be trying it either. Maybe there's a business idea here though, in pre-made special-case videochat boxes. I bet there are other optimizations to be made as well.
- polytely 6y ago
  I think some(?) smartphones adjust your eyes via post processing to create the illusion of eye-contact when taking selfies, I wonder if this is fast enough to also do it with built-in webcams in laptops.
  - wintermutestwin 6y ago
    Yes - Apple put this in to newer ARKit phones. They demoed it for Facetime during beta, but I haven't seen more on it since. Not sure if it will work with other apps like zoom.
  - stnmtn 6y ago
    Something about this creeps me out even though I probably wouldn't notice it if it wasn't pointed out to me.
- 6y ago
Grustaf 6y ago
This seems like the opposite of “short-circuiting”.
tchock23 6y ago
I wonder how much of this is 2D/3D and a feeling of “presence.” Anecdotally, I’ve been playing various games in VR with friends & family and it just feels so much more like I’m there. I’d be interested to see research on building trust in virtual 3D environments vs. 2D video chat. Also, the email vs. in-person donation research didn’t make sense to me. Of course someone that asks you for a donation in-person will get a higher response. However, the reason would be social pressures, reciprocity and/or conformity rather than anything inherent to physical presence.
- LyndsySimon 6y ago
  My instinct is that stereoscopic vision is a big part of facial awareness. Simply moving it to 3D with virtual avatars wouldn't be enough, though - I think it's probably more about consciously imperceptible social cues. If those cues could be identified, maybe you could point a high-res camera pointed at the person to capture them and then reproduce them on their VR avatar. I doubt the science is there, though.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tzs 6y ago
> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building successful teams, according to research Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift. In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams. EverQuest in particular in its first several years required a lot of teamwork to reach the highest level content, with each team member having to put in effort equivalent to a full time job. EverQuest had a huge "death penalty" compared to pretty much every MMORPG since, with a death sometimes wiping out days or even weeks of advancement and preparation. It was designed so that you could do very little solo or even in small groups at the high end so you had to rely upon and trust your teammates. Later MMORPGs toned it down a bit compared to EverQuest [1], but they still all had things that greatly benefited from successful trusting teams, and those teams formed in all of them. [1] As did EverQuest itself. In fact, EQ today is actually a quite fun and interesting game to play solo. On a free play account you can reasonably get a character up to around level 50 solo, which was the limit in original EQ, and that solo character will be able to do a large fraction of what had been the high end content back in the day. On a paid account, which opens up access to more abilities, you can easily solo into at least the 80s or maybe 90s (115 is the current max level).
- gamereality 6y ago
  Video games != Real life
  - tzs 6y ago
    What factors do you imagine would make it so that in, say, classic EverQuest people can form entirely online teams that work well together to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation that would not also apply to "real life" teams working to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation?
    - gamereality 6y ago
      The stakes in video games are imaginary. Trust between real people in real life is completely different. For soldiers, athletes and even business leaders, the stakes are real and having an in-person relationship makes a difference.
wickerman 6y ago
I feel like any other tool, it largely depends on the context in which it's being used. I think that video chats are phenomenal in certain workplaces, or for certain people, and terrible in others. I've been in situations where half the team was offshore and it took a long time to build rapport because it's a lot more difficult to be casual while on calls - you want to get to the point while you're on a meeting, so you never get to chit chat with them the same way you would chit chat with the coworker you have right beside you. But on the other side, I've also worked with people on the autism spectrum and noticed that interactions became a lot easier through video conference than in person. On my side at least, I tend to get thrown off a lot by out of place mannerisms so it was easier for me to communicate with them. And as some other people have pointed out, there might be working environments where home working actually helps to avoid/reduce tension/intimidation/toxic relationships etc. Edit: also worth mentioning that my husband and I met and fell in love after skyping for many years (we lived in different continents) and I'm certainly not the only one...
havelhovel 6y ago
Before this article influences more discussion, I want to point out that it provides no research relevant to the claim that "video chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust." The only research cited show that face-to-face contact is more effective at soliciting donations than email [1], that non-verbal cues are important for feeling trust [2], something about sunglasses affecting theory of mind, and (ironically) that credibility assessments are stronger without visual cues [3]. The only sentence that actually applies to video chat is Frances Westley's complaint that "the quality...and satisfaction of the interaction...is diminished." 1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210311630292X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221... 2: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612448793 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761244879... 3: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/
- the-pigeon 6y ago
  Yeah...there might be something to this idea but this article doesn't back it's claims with any evidence.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Things like this always give me a feeling a foul play, but obviously that's just a feeling without proof. I dearly hope that someday we'll be able to look back and have a realistic view of just how much foul play exists right now. What if someone paid for this narrative without any supporting evidence? What if it was just the product of an idealess reporting team? Who knows... but some day I would love to.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  I don't buy it precisely because I worked in high-trust teams back before videoconferencing. We only had telephone and fax/email.
- dleslie 6y ago
  There's something to be said for the intimidation of physical presence, as well. The stature and physical proximity of the individual being spoken to is not a factor in video chats, and I imagine the absence of those factors would have an impact upon solicitations of services which wouldn't normally be forthcoming, like donations.
czbond 6y ago
Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions. A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at 'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even though I am CompSci by nature, our success hinged on personal interactions. Here is what I highly suggest, and has worked wonders for me. - Learn to talk. Get on calls early, do research on the attendants to try to find some common interests quickly. Think like a salesperson, trying to close the 'people' by being human, friendly. Edit: A good add on to this, is to find their 'pivot person' - a person on the call the team trusts (often a few people down the 'food chain'). - Make self-deprecating fun of yourself. I try to poke fun at myself very quickly to show humbling comedy - and I do it loudly. People like when you make them laugh. By making them laugh at me, no one's feelings are hurt. It gives their team a feeling of superiority, so you must be able to back it up with real firepower later to control. - Try to take 'their team' side as often as possible. Assume every decision they've made is intelligent, and in good faith. You'd ask for the same. - See how you can foster individual relationships. For their lead developer, "Hey I saw this about your stack/what we're doing/etc - and thought of you". - Only 'do other things' on your computer during that meeting immediately related, and very short in duration. - Don't argue with 'that argumentative, defensive engineer' around the other groups. "That's a really great point - can I call you after this?" Hope it helps.
- justwalt 6y ago
  These tips all seem rational and effective. Thanks for posting!
caseysoftware 6y ago
At an internal event back in February (in the before times), we had a videographer come through asking questions. She asked me "What did you learn this week?" My response: "I learned how tall everyone is! On Zoom, everyone is the same height!" Unfortunately, it didn't make the highlight video. :) But the serious side of it is that if 100% of our interactions are from the chest up, we lose a ton of body language context and physical expressions. With everyone muted, you miss out on verbal cues too. We're missing layers/nuance of communication but it's hard to tell if those are 1%, 25%, 50%, or 95% of the interaction.
oblib 6y ago
I think there is something to this. I can't quite make the leap to "video chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust." but I do think we miss out on a lot, or maybe some tend to be dismissive. I think it may be easier to be dismissive in a video chat, but I'd suspect those who are would tend to be so anyway, just behind your back, not face to face in the meeting.
logie17 6y ago
I think there is a lot more that video apps can do to take the edge off or to make people feel more comfortable in meetings. Right now I think most tools are very rudimentary. Full disclosure, I work for https://team.video https://team.video and we're trying to make meetings more enjoyable. Just simple things like having built in agendas, games, and non-verbal feedback I think can go a long way to making a remote meeting way less painful and help build trust among your colleagues.
Animats 6y ago
Even one-way video worked for Walter Cronkite and Ronald Reagan. (Trust-inspiring TV personalities since then have been sparse, but that's not due to a problem with the video system.)

113 points by fraqed 6y ago

Two thoughts: 1. In my experience, I worked with a group that was adversarial until we began to use video conferencing and could see each other. The relationship became better after that (it was an internal validation group that was in another location). We could see each other and no quality of work was impacted. We ceased to be each other's boogeyman. 2. Many folks experienced video conferencing the first time at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which is not representative of normal times. I reckon that this singular view isn't capturing a lot of things.

12bits 6y ago
Regarding point 2 “Canadian research on "computer-mediated communication," begun long before the current lockdown, shows video chat is an inadequate substitute for real-life interaction. The real thing, dependant on non-verbal cues, is extraordinarily more effective in creating rapport and getting ideas across.”
- havelhovel 6y ago
  The article is deliberately vague on actual research, and it appears that “computer-mediated communication“ may only be referring to Roghanizad‘s 2017 paper on email communication.

capnahab 6y ago

I am a surgeon, hospitals are seizing the online video call as a new miracle cost saver. Whilst some consultations are OK for routine encounters eg organising tests, when it comes to discussing surgery most patients value seeing the surgeon.

dawg- 6y ago
My dad is a Physical Therapist, and believe it or not they are pushing for PTs to do telehealth. It kind of sounds like a pipe dream to me seeing as how hands-on the profession is. I mean a big part of the job is that you literally have to touch people and move their joints around for them.
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  I personally believe Physical Therapy is a field ripe for innovation, but I don't think that's quite it.
LinuxBender 6y ago
I agree with this. If I needed a surgeon, I most certainly would not be using video as I do not have CT/X-ray/Ultrasound at home. I would love to have my own ultrasound. I predict some day there will be a low cost portable unit that allows people to upload ultrasound images in a standard format. Same goes for epigentic methylation. Today the equipment takes up half a room. I have been getting voice mails daily from my doctors office to do a zoom call for a routine checkup. They appear desperate for business.

wcoenen 6y ago

Where is the research paper that found this "brain function short circuit"? The CBC article doesn't shed much light on the claim made in the title, and seems to link to a few different older papers.

dawg- 6y ago
Any time brains are compared to electronics, be skeptical.

kevincox 6y ago

I don't think this is a surprise for many people who have been working with people in different offices for a while. I don't have any hard evidence but from my experience you can work with people in other offices for months, often getting the feeling that formality and lack of trust was getting in the way. But then I burn a ton of fossil fuels to fly over and spend a couple of days with them in person and the discussion changes dramatically. It feels so silly that you need to damage the environment and spend so much money for something that logically seems the same. I am looking at someone's face and talking. But it works, it is so unreasonably effective that from time to time I need to fly just to see a colleague in person.

r_c_a_d 6y ago
My experience is that after you have met someone once (for more than a few minutes) then video calls work a lot better than with people you have never met. I guess you develop some degree of trust (and a stronger mental model) during a meeting that persists afterwards.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > you develop some degree of trust (and a stronger mental model) For me, the former flows from the latter. When I meet in person, there is eventually a moment when I get a click feeling. Following that, a person's behavior becomes more predictable. Or at the very least explainable. That leads to comfort, which is a commercial substitute for trust. That click take me a long time reach on the phone. For whatever reason, it has never happened over video chat.
- dr_zoidberg 6y ago
  With one of my best friends we met playing online games and we developed trust between each other by force of voicechat and game-specific trust-based mechanics (remember those Portal 2 game trailers?[0] Well that kind of stuff, but along many different online games). When we met in person it was like we'd known each other for years because we had known each other for years. I think the issue here could be related to the dissonance of seeing a face, the brain expecting eye contact, but being totally unable to get it because of technological limitations. Since the brain doesn't have any other "source of trust" for that face (be that the voice, past behavior/experiences, having met that person to being with) it clicks the "do not trust (entirely)" response. Of course I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist/neurological MD and I'm talking entirely from my experience. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMSAzZ76EU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZMSAzZ76EU

leonardteo 6y ago

It's funny that the original title for this article on CBC was actually "Zoom chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust: Don Pittis | CBC News" and the article only mentioned Zoom. :) They changed the title and edited I guess after people pointed out that the research itself was not Zoom specific. I'm amazed how Zoom has become synonomous with "video conferencing" when there are so many other viable solutions available.

sosuke 6y ago
I completely agree. I had never heard of Zoom before this outbreak. It was always some other small video conferencing solution or GotoMeeting if it was official business.
- stephenhuey 6y ago
  I’ve heard their name on NPR ads in Houston for years and even tried them once years ago but never knew of anyone else using them. I just assumed they were about the same as other solutions but were trying to ramp up with VC money.
dawg- 6y ago
I could see Zoom ending up like Kleenex or Jet Ski or Crock-Pot or Chapstick, where the brand name becomes the word for the thing itself. Edit because I googled it for more examples and couldn't help myself: Tupperware, Band-Aids, Post-It, Slip n Slide, Xerox, Velcro, Weed Eater, Scotch Tape, Q-Tips, Rollerblades, Jacuzzi, Bubble Wrap.....
- tantalor 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
- dmd 6y ago
  A few days ago this gem appeared in my inbox: "Hey folks, we had trouble setting up the Cisco zoom this meeting so we're switching to a Google zoom, here's the link"

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

I've noticed that it takes a different effort to communicate digitally than in-person. I can talk to a person in a car as I drive, no problem. But talk (even hands-free) over a phone and it takes a lot more attention. As accident statistics point out. Why is this? I think we're wired to interact in-person. When we try to talk to a person we can't sense directly, we have to build a brain model of them. That takes quite a bit more effort. As an experiment I tried putting my hand up to block my passenger from view as I drove. Immediately I could tell I was paying less attention to the road, vividly. Just having them out of view, even peripherally, made for a different experience.

chadlavi 6y ago
this is slightly different from the problem of not seeing someone, but the fact that video chat software demands a walkie-talkie style "you talk, then I talk, then you talk" style of conversation is very difficult. Normal human conversation includes a lot of natural (and sometimes productive) cross-talk.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Agreed! I was part of a product team that build Sococo Teamspace, including a video chat that allowed interruption. Everybody could talk at once, and still hear everyone else. It made an amazing difference.
hamandcheese 6y ago
For driving-and-talking specifically, I remember reading somewhere that when you need to pause for a second and focus on driving, it’s obvious why to a passenger and they can preemptively stop talking, but not obvious to someone on the phone. The person on the phone has no context and will keep talking in your ear as you try to maneuver through a stressful situation.

motohagiography 6y ago

Couldn't help but wonder whether stereoscopic cameras might affect this somehow, and it would be interesting to hear anecdotes of whether that makes a difference. Orthogonaly, I worked in an environment some years ago that had zoom sessions in %90 of all meetings, and the trust level between teams on zoom was low. There were company culture reasons for it, as arguably internecine conflict is necessarily a leadership gap, but the zoom medium itself advantaged misrepresentation in a way that email, slack and even conference calls did not. The difference between video and audio calls was that with just audio, someone cannot use their counterparty's isolation to lie because they can't be sure there is nobody else there. On ephemeral video, someone in an empty room is already atomized, and the power dynamic changes. I remember reading a bunch of critical theory about art from the 80's and 90's about the effect of framing, the gaze of the camera, the relationship between subjects and observers, and how people relate to images. When you are on camera and seeing yourself reflected in a screen without a lot of fidelity, it creates a feeling of uncannyness, and you are made self-conscious, which has consequences to the power dynamic of the conversation. It can set up perfect storm conditions for people whose personalities are given to reflexive or defensive lies. We behave differently when they are being observed or recorded. I used to always use the camera, but since the lockdown, I have been dialing in to conferences because the uncertainty of the audio connection is leveling. For personal acquaintences, I use the camera, but if there is a power difference, I use audio. The uncanny effect of video causing self consciousness that brings out defensive traits, which cause mistrust in relationships could just be an "uncanny valley," effect, hence my initial question of whether stereoscopic cameras might change the effect, or maybe exacerbate it. It's also possible that offsetting your camera angle so that you both are being seen to view the same thing from different angles, as though you are discussing some third party object, might improve comfort levels instead of the dead-on positioning of laptop cameras. If I stared at my dog the way people look into their cameras, he'd eventually attack me or someone else, it's possible the camera positioning we use for video conferencing creates the same kind of confrontational/defensive frame. A portrait photographer could have some insight into this I'm sure.

okasaki 6y ago

Worthless clickbait, article and research.

tompagenet2 6y ago

I do wonder whether video calls have become the next reading, television or video games - this horror that will destroy people's brains. It all feels rather reactionary. Surely different forms of communication work for different people in different circumstances. We can't make these wide pronouncements.

jacknews 6y ago

There's little doubt that face-to-face communication is more 'human' than video chat, and better for building rapport and intimacy. But where is the evidence that video-only (or audio, or text) is bad for the workplace? It could actually be a 'leveler', and in fact better, if it reduces cliques, collusion, physical intimidation, etc, and therefore fosters more open and widespread collaboration.

vorpalhex 6y ago

I suspect a lot of it is quality and UI/UX woes. In a default video app you struggle to see everyone, only one speaker can be heard clearly and usually there's audio/video sync issues. Add a sprinkle of bad hardware and suddenly it's more like talking to a robot over dialup than any semblance of a conversation. On the other hand, have the participants use good hardware, high quality connections and fix the audio issues and the problems greatly get reduced. Anecdotally, comparing my work meetings to my video-chat social calls seems to reinforce this. Work folks typically use just their laptop and have questionable wireless, and we use Google Meet which seems to get worse with every update especially on the audio front. Meanwhile the social group is primarily streamers with high end cameras and microphones and better networking, which when combined with Discords significantly improved audio muxing dramatically improves call quality and reduces "Zoom fatigue".

xwdv 6y ago

I wonder what the effect might be if you crop off a 40% of a person's face vertically, such that you are only seeing one eye and a bit more than half their nose and mouth.

KallDrexx 6y ago

My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.

enobrev 6y ago
I don't think I'll be trying this, but it's a really interesting DIY solution to ensuring eye contact when video conferencing. https://youtu.be/2AecAXinars https://youtu.be/2AecAXinars
- cryptoz 6y ago
  Before I clicked I wondered why you wouldn't be trying it. Understood, I suppose I won't be trying it either. Maybe there's a business idea here though, in pre-made special-case videochat boxes. I bet there are other optimizations to be made as well.
polytely 6y ago
I think some(?) smartphones adjust your eyes via post processing to create the illusion of eye-contact when taking selfies, I wonder if this is fast enough to also do it with built-in webcams in laptops.
- wintermutestwin 6y ago
  Yes - Apple put this in to newer ARKit phones. They demoed it for Facetime during beta, but I haven't seen more on it since. Not sure if it will work with other apps like zoom.
- stnmtn 6y ago
  Something about this creeps me out even though I probably wouldn't notice it if it wasn't pointed out to me.
6y ago

Grustaf 6y ago

This seems like the opposite of “short-circuiting”.

tchock23 6y ago

I wonder how much of this is 2D/3D and a feeling of “presence.” Anecdotally, I’ve been playing various games in VR with friends & family and it just feels so much more like I’m there. I’d be interested to see research on building trust in virtual 3D environments vs. 2D video chat. Also, the email vs. in-person donation research didn’t make sense to me. Of course someone that asks you for a donation in-person will get a higher response. However, the reason would be social pressures, reciprocity and/or conformity rather than anything inherent to physical presence.

LyndsySimon 6y ago
My instinct is that stereoscopic vision is a big part of facial awareness. Simply moving it to 3D with virtual avatars wouldn't be enough, though - I think it's probably more about consciously imperceptible social cues. If those cues could be identified, maybe you could point a high-res camera pointed at the person to capture them and then reproduce them on their VR avatar. I doubt the science is there, though.
deleted 6y ago
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tzs 6y ago

> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building successful teams, according to research Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift. In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams. EverQuest in particular in its first several years required a lot of teamwork to reach the highest level content, with each team member having to put in effort equivalent to a full time job. EverQuest had a huge "death penalty" compared to pretty much every MMORPG since, with a death sometimes wiping out days or even weeks of advancement and preparation. It was designed so that you could do very little solo or even in small groups at the high end so you had to rely upon and trust your teammates. Later MMORPGs toned it down a bit compared to EverQuest [1], but they still all had things that greatly benefited from successful trusting teams, and those teams formed in all of them. [1] As did EverQuest itself. In fact, EQ today is actually a quite fun and interesting game to play solo. On a free play account you can reasonably get a character up to around level 50 solo, which was the limit in original EQ, and that solo character will be able to do a large fraction of what had been the high end content back in the day. On a paid account, which opens up access to more abilities, you can easily solo into at least the 80s or maybe 90s (115 is the current max level).

gamereality 6y ago
Video games != Real life
- tzs 6y ago
  What factors do you imagine would make it so that in, say, classic EverQuest people can form entirely online teams that work well together to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation that would not also apply to "real life" teams working to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation?
  - gamereality 6y ago
    The stakes in video games are imaginary. Trust between real people in real life is completely different. For soldiers, athletes and even business leaders, the stakes are real and having an in-person relationship makes a difference.

wickerman 6y ago

I feel like any other tool, it largely depends on the context in which it's being used. I think that video chats are phenomenal in certain workplaces, or for certain people, and terrible in others. I've been in situations where half the team was offshore and it took a long time to build rapport because it's a lot more difficult to be casual while on calls - you want to get to the point while you're on a meeting, so you never get to chit chat with them the same way you would chit chat with the coworker you have right beside you. But on the other side, I've also worked with people on the autism spectrum and noticed that interactions became a lot easier through video conference than in person. On my side at least, I tend to get thrown off a lot by out of place mannerisms so it was easier for me to communicate with them. And as some other people have pointed out, there might be working environments where home working actually helps to avoid/reduce tension/intimidation/toxic relationships etc. Edit: also worth mentioning that my husband and I met and fell in love after skyping for many years (we lived in different continents) and I'm certainly not the only one...

havelhovel 6y ago

Before this article influences more discussion, I want to point out that it provides no research relevant to the claim that "video chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust." The only research cited show that face-to-face contact is more effective at soliciting donations than email [1], that non-verbal cues are important for feeling trust [2], something about sunglasses affecting theory of mind, and (ironically) that credibility assessments are stronger without visual cues [3]. The only sentence that actually applies to video chat is Frances Westley's complaint that "the quality...and satisfaction of the interaction...is diminished." 1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210311630292X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221... 2: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612448793 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761244879... 3: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/

the-pigeon 6y ago
Yeah...there might be something to this idea but this article doesn't back it's claims with any evidence.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  Things like this always give me a feeling a foul play, but obviously that's just a feeling without proof. I dearly hope that someday we'll be able to look back and have a realistic view of just how much foul play exists right now. What if someone paid for this narrative without any supporting evidence? What if it was just the product of an idealess reporting team? Who knows... but some day I would love to.
082349872349872 6y ago
I don't buy it precisely because I worked in high-trust teams back before videoconferencing. We only had telephone and fax/email.
dleslie 6y ago
There's something to be said for the intimidation of physical presence, as well. The stature and physical proximity of the individual being spoken to is not a factor in video chats, and I imagine the absence of those factors would have an impact upon solicitations of services which wouldn't normally be forthcoming, like donations.

czbond 6y ago

Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions. A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at 'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even though I am CompSci by nature, our success hinged on personal interactions. Here is what I highly suggest, and has worked wonders for me. - Learn to talk. Get on calls early, do research on the attendants to try to find some common interests quickly. Think like a salesperson, trying to close the 'people' by being human, friendly. Edit: A good add on to this, is to find their 'pivot person' - a person on the call the team trusts (often a few people down the 'food chain'). - Make self-deprecating fun of yourself. I try to poke fun at myself very quickly to show humbling comedy - and I do it loudly. People like when you make them laugh. By making them laugh at me, no one's feelings are hurt. It gives their team a feeling of superiority, so you must be able to back it up with real firepower later to control. - Try to take 'their team' side as often as possible. Assume every decision they've made is intelligent, and in good faith. You'd ask for the same. - See how you can foster individual relationships. For their lead developer, "Hey I saw this about your stack/what we're doing/etc - and thought of you". - Only 'do other things' on your computer during that meeting immediately related, and very short in duration. - Don't argue with 'that argumentative, defensive engineer' around the other groups. "That's a really great point - can I call you after this?" Hope it helps.

justwalt 6y ago
These tips all seem rational and effective. Thanks for posting!

caseysoftware 6y ago

At an internal event back in February (in the before times), we had a videographer come through asking questions. She asked me "What did you learn this week?" My response: "I learned how tall everyone is! On Zoom, everyone is the same height!" Unfortunately, it didn't make the highlight video. :) But the serious side of it is that if 100% of our interactions are from the chest up, we lose a ton of body language context and physical expressions. With everyone muted, you miss out on verbal cues too. We're missing layers/nuance of communication but it's hard to tell if those are 1%, 25%, 50%, or 95% of the interaction.

oblib 6y ago

I think there is something to this. I can't quite make the leap to "video chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust." but I do think we miss out on a lot, or maybe some tend to be dismissive. I think it may be easier to be dismissive in a video chat, but I'd suspect those who are would tend to be so anyway, just behind your back, not face to face in the meeting.

logie17 6y ago

I think there is a lot more that video apps can do to take the edge off or to make people feel more comfortable in meetings. Right now I think most tools are very rudimentary. Full disclosure, I work for https://team.video https://team.video and we're trying to make meetings more enjoyable. Just simple things like having built in agendas, games, and non-verbal feedback I think can go a long way to making a remote meeting way less painful and help build trust among your colleagues.

Animats 6y ago

Even one-way video worked for Walter Cronkite and Ronald Reagan. (Trust-inspiring TV personalities since then have been sparse, but that's not due to a problem with the video system.)