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I wish my coworkers would stop using background blur. It sucks and it’s distracting. Your hair and hands pop in and out of blur. Sometimes part of your face

I wish my coworkers would stop using background blur. It sucks and it’s distracting. Your hair and hands pop in and out of blur. Sometimes part of your face will blur. I don’t care if your workspace is messy or your kid walks in the room. I do care that we’re all being distracted by your weirdly blurred hair and hands.

janekm 6y ago
Your co-workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their home life and family members. Given that many had to start WfH with short notice meaning they couldn't relocate to circumstances enabling a dedicated home office space blurry hair and hands are a very reasonable compromise.
- josalhor 6y ago
  > Your co-workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their home life and family members. I think you are overthinking it. I've seen people use it when it provides no real material benefit other than the placebo effect on the user to believe that the blur makes other people focus on their face.
- fsloth 6y ago
  Yeah, this is why I use the background blur. I have my wife's and my hobbystuff behind me. Can't really align the video/pc setup any other way. Rather provide a blur than a confusion of guitars, sewing kit and such.
- swiley 6y ago
  Is it really that hard to set up a greenscreen for this? I can look out accross the street and see a number of people who have done this in their tiny apartments. If I cared about people being able to see the room behind my WFH set up I would do it too. Thankfully for me it just points at the wall I use as a projector screen so there's nothing to see. Plus my team seems to have just given up on video anyway.
josalhor 6y ago
I find background blur even more distracting than background replacement. It's like my mind tries to picture the person that I am seeing in a particular environment and blur makes that process messy. But that's not always true tho, I have seen background replacement all over people's face (and yes, I seem to be the only one who thinks that's wrong).
tziki 6y ago
I don't think anyone is being distracted by blurred hair or hands. If your coworkers don't feel comfortable even turning on the camera, it shouldn't matter to you. Aside from edge cases like a modelling agency looking for fresh faces, you have zero right to demand how people choose to potray themselves in a VC call.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  I have no problem with people choosing to leave their cameras off (I rarely turn my own camera on in meetings). I still think the complaint about poorly implemented background blur/background replacement is at least partially valid. It is very distracting to me compared to either a raw camera or no camera at all.

janekm 6y ago

Your co-workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their home life and family members. Given that many had to start WfH with short notice meaning they couldn't relocate to circumstances enabling a dedicated home office space blurry hair and hands are a very reasonable compromise.

josalhor 6y ago
> Your co-workers have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their home life and family members. I think you are overthinking it. I've seen people use it when it provides no real material benefit other than the placebo effect on the user to believe that the blur makes other people focus on their face.
fsloth 6y ago
Yeah, this is why I use the background blur. I have my wife's and my hobbystuff behind me. Can't really align the video/pc setup any other way. Rather provide a blur than a confusion of guitars, sewing kit and such.
swiley 6y ago
Is it really that hard to set up a greenscreen for this? I can look out accross the street and see a number of people who have done this in their tiny apartments. If I cared about people being able to see the room behind my WFH set up I would do it too. Thankfully for me it just points at the wall I use as a projector screen so there's nothing to see. Plus my team seems to have just given up on video anyway.

josalhor 6y ago

I find background blur even more distracting than background replacement. It's like my mind tries to picture the person that I am seeing in a particular environment and blur makes that process messy. But that's not always true tho, I have seen background replacement all over people's face (and yes, I seem to be the only one who thinks that's wrong).

tziki 6y ago

I don't think anyone is being distracted by blurred hair or hands. If your coworkers don't feel comfortable even turning on the camera, it shouldn't matter to you. Aside from edge cases like a modelling agency looking for fresh faces, you have zero right to demand how people choose to potray themselves in a VC call.

0xffff2 6y ago
I have no problem with people choosing to leave their cameras off (I rarely turn my own camera on in meetings). I still think the complaint about poorly implemented background blur/background replacement is at least partially valid. It is very distracting to me compared to either a raw camera or no camera at all.