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> but they still have little utility beyond a simple phone call We've collectively been running a huge experiment for the last year that has pretty conclusivel

by ska 6y ago

> but they still have little utility beyond a simple phone call We've collectively been running a huge experiment for the last year that has pretty conclusively proven this hypothesis false.

clairity 6y ago
an unsupported assertion is not conclusive proof. we’ve seen that people have been trying to substitute in-person meetings with video calls, but that doesn’t prove any additional utility beyond a conference call. even in educational or therapy/coaching situations, a recorded instructional video accompanied by a phone checkin likely has better outcomes than video chats.
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  > even in educational or therapy/coaching situations, a recorded instructional video accompanied by a phone checkin likely has better outcomes than video chats. This just screams "citation needed." Video chat is hugely useful whenever there is any kind of discussion, debate, or negotiation. With video chat you can read facial expressions, cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions, etc.
  - clairity 6y ago
    > "Video chat is hugely useful whenever there is any kind of discussion, debate, or negotiation. With video chat you can read facial expressions, cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions, etc." this just screams "citation needed." a planar, poorly lit, relatively low resolution video image doesn't provide enough detail to read expressions nearly as well as you can in person. it's actually much easier to misread expressions over video than just listening to voices, because we can focus much more on voice and it requires much less bandwidth to provide roughly equivalent clarity as speaking in person. long distance discussions, debates, and negotiations have happened just fine for decades without video. as for interruptions, millions of years of social conditioning seems to suffice at allowing us to negotiate overlap adequately. besides, simple technology like a wish-to-speak signal can be employed if need be (though they're unnecessary).
  - BlargMcLarg 6y ago
    >cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions Never seen video chat be a good substitute for poor etiquette. People still decide to interrupt one another. FWIW, this problem also occurs in-person on a daily basis with most people. >With video chat you can read facial expressions This is a double-edged sword. Some facial expressions are better off not read. Facial expressions are routinely misinterpreted. Worse, it creates an incentive to turn facial expressions into facial expression etiquette, which is both annoying to the person, and removes any reason to even use facial expressions. I can accept video chat in small groups (sub-5) for a short time in professional settings. Anything other than that feels suffocating and limiting. There definitely is an obsession with video chat which has yet to be proven, by a majority who are trying to (poorly) mimic the workfloor.
- ska 6y ago
  You miss my point, I think. Everyone who has access to video calls could trivially turn them into conference calls instead. The fact that they continue to prefer video for at least some situation demonstrates that, regardless of what else is going on, they find the video calls to have some additional utility. If your hypothesis were true, we would not observer this behavior.
  - clairity 6y ago
    no, that's trivially refuted by considering the simpler but still consistent explanation that video calls are employed to more closely mimic the contemporaneously rare in-person meetings without considering (negative) utility at all. in any case, your argument is circular because you're implicitly asserting utility must exist ('if they use video, it must have utility'), and then pointing to that just-asserted utility as (unsupported) refutation.
    - ska 6y ago
      It doesn’t matter what the video calls are used for - the claim was they have less utility than phone calls. I suspect you are over thinking this. People choose video over phone only sometimes because it has more utility for them - hence the hypothesis is false. Simple.
stretchcat 6y ago
Narcissistic managers demanding everybody on their team use webcams during meetings hardly refutes clairity post.
- Sunspark 6y ago
  Wanting to see one's colleagues is not narcissism. There's a valid accessibility reason as being able to see the other person helps people with hearing challenges and also, it's pretty rude to refuse to let yourself be seen. I never understood people who "didn't want to be seen" on camera during meetings (especially meetings with hearing accessibility issues) because those same people were willing to work in the physical workplace. The way I see it, if you refuse to be seen in a virtual meeting, you should _also_ refuse to be seen in person as well.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    Being seen is consequence of working in a physical space, not the objective. Not unless you're a stripper. Phone meetings worked just fine for decades, video chat is pure narcissism. If there were somebody deaf on my team then I suppose I would reconsider it, but there isn't, so spare me the moralizing.
    - Sunspark 6y ago
      I'll be honest. I'm that guy with the hearing accessibility issue. That's why I'm mad about people who refuse to be seen. If we use MS Teams or Google Meet, then it's mitigable because those support computer generated captions (albeit not perfect). But other technologies like Zoom, Webex, etc. don't have that feature, so literally, if there are no captions and I can't see you in order to lipread & read some body language, then we are unable to have a productive meeting. You might as well be speaking a foreign language. Even if everyone has normal hearing, it's still a good thing to be able to see each other to check-in on everyone's body language and well-being. If someone looks really unhappy or looks like they're not taking care of themselves at all, then this is information that they need help with something.
  - 6y ago

by ska 6y ago

> but they still have little utility beyond a simple phone call We've collectively been running a huge experiment for the last year that has pretty conclusively proven this hypothesis false.

clairity 6y ago

an unsupported assertion is not conclusive proof. we’ve seen that people have been trying to substitute in-person meetings with video calls, but that doesn’t prove any additional utility beyond a conference call. even in educational or therapy/coaching situations, a recorded instructional video accompanied by a phone checkin likely has better outcomes than video chats.

warkdarrior 6y ago
> even in educational or therapy/coaching situations, a recorded instructional video accompanied by a phone checkin likely has better outcomes than video chats. This just screams "citation needed." Video chat is hugely useful whenever there is any kind of discussion, debate, or negotiation. With video chat you can read facial expressions, cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions, etc.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "Video chat is hugely useful whenever there is any kind of discussion, debate, or negotiation. With video chat you can read facial expressions, cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions, etc." this just screams "citation needed." a planar, poorly lit, relatively low resolution video image doesn't provide enough detail to read expressions nearly as well as you can in person. it's actually much easier to misread expressions over video than just listening to voices, because we can focus much more on voice and it requires much less bandwidth to provide roughly equivalent clarity as speaking in person. long distance discussions, debates, and negotiations have happened just fine for decades without video. as for interruptions, millions of years of social conditioning seems to suffice at allowing us to negotiate overlap adequately. besides, simple technology like a wish-to-speak signal can be employed if need be (though they're unnecessary).
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  >cut down on overlapping speech and interruptions Never seen video chat be a good substitute for poor etiquette. People still decide to interrupt one another. FWIW, this problem also occurs in-person on a daily basis with most people. >With video chat you can read facial expressions This is a double-edged sword. Some facial expressions are better off not read. Facial expressions are routinely misinterpreted. Worse, it creates an incentive to turn facial expressions into facial expression etiquette, which is both annoying to the person, and removes any reason to even use facial expressions. I can accept video chat in small groups (sub-5) for a short time in professional settings. Anything other than that feels suffocating and limiting. There definitely is an obsession with video chat which has yet to be proven, by a majority who are trying to (poorly) mimic the workfloor.
ska 6y ago
You miss my point, I think. Everyone who has access to video calls could trivially turn them into conference calls instead. The fact that they continue to prefer video for at least some situation demonstrates that, regardless of what else is going on, they find the video calls to have some additional utility. If your hypothesis were true, we would not observer this behavior.
- clairity 6y ago
  no, that's trivially refuted by considering the simpler but still consistent explanation that video calls are employed to more closely mimic the contemporaneously rare in-person meetings without considering (negative) utility at all. in any case, your argument is circular because you're implicitly asserting utility must exist ('if they use video, it must have utility'), and then pointing to that just-asserted utility as (unsupported) refutation.
  - ska 6y ago
    It doesn’t matter what the video calls are used for - the claim was they have less utility than phone calls. I suspect you are over thinking this. People choose video over phone only sometimes because it has more utility for them - hence the hypothesis is false. Simple.

stretchcat 6y ago

Narcissistic managers demanding everybody on their team use webcams during meetings hardly refutes clairity post.

Sunspark 6y ago
Wanting to see one's colleagues is not narcissism. There's a valid accessibility reason as being able to see the other person helps people with hearing challenges and also, it's pretty rude to refuse to let yourself be seen. I never understood people who "didn't want to be seen" on camera during meetings (especially meetings with hearing accessibility issues) because those same people were willing to work in the physical workplace. The way I see it, if you refuse to be seen in a virtual meeting, you should _also_ refuse to be seen in person as well.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  Being seen is consequence of working in a physical space, not the objective. Not unless you're a stripper. Phone meetings worked just fine for decades, video chat is pure narcissism. If there were somebody deaf on my team then I suppose I would reconsider it, but there isn't, so spare me the moralizing.
  - Sunspark 6y ago
    I'll be honest. I'm that guy with the hearing accessibility issue. That's why I'm mad about people who refuse to be seen. If we use MS Teams or Google Meet, then it's mitigable because those support computer generated captions (albeit not perfect). But other technologies like Zoom, Webex, etc. don't have that feature, so literally, if there are no captions and I can't see you in order to lipread & read some body language, then we are unable to have a productive meeting. You might as well be speaking a foreign language. Even if everyone has normal hearing, it's still a good thing to be able to see each other to check-in on everyone's body language and well-being. If someone looks really unhappy or looks like they're not taking care of themselves at all, then this is information that they need help with something.
- 6y ago