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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 pr

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.

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.