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Humans communicate via audio. Actually seeing a person's face doesn't seem to add much to comprehension in my opinion. As an absurd example to illustrate this p

Humans communicate via audio. Actually seeing a person's face doesn't seem to add much to comprehension in my opinion. As an absurd example to illustrate this point, consider a cameras on, mics off meeting to get a sense of what proportion of information is communicated by audio vs video. As a second example, consider a meeting with cameras and audio but with a 1 second delay in audio - this would almost be as bad as the first. I don't mind having cameras on at all really but they don't add much - it is largely just a novelty. Audio is everything.

stult 5y ago
Faces are helpful for communicating around emotionally nuanced issues, which is usually not part of routine communications. So if it's a potentially emotionally charged conversation, maybe that should be the signal it's time to require cameras on.
grzm 5y ago
High definition audio is great. That said, upwards of 90% of human communication is non-verbal, including body language and facial expressions. One benefit of high-quality audio vs text is that we include intonation. But it doesn't encapsulate everything. This isn't to say we've cracked that nut with the current state of internet-transmitted video. A blanket "humans communicate via audio neglects these other channels of communication.
- osigurdson 5y ago
  > 90% of human communication is non-verbal, If true you should be able to communicate effectively without audio. Clearly this is not the case.
  - grzm 5y ago
    raises eyebrows
  - ccortes 5y ago
    You can with text
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      Parent misspoke and instead should have said 'you should be able to communicate effectively without words'. Obviously the fact that we're communicating 100% of our information currently using text shows that the 90% figure is extremely misleading. 90% of our understanding of a person's character or something maybe comes from their physicality.
    - osigurdson 5y ago
      The context of this discussion is Zoom/Teams type meetings. My point is that low latency audio is most important in these settings. Low latency is really the key and currently seems to be an unsolved problem in MS Teams at least.
  - nikau 5y ago
    On the flip side I would probably pay more attention if meetings were done french mime style
- louhike 5y ago
  This 90% value is used too much without context. It is not something we can apply for all situation, or every type of information we want to convey. It’s almost seem like a magic joker when there s a debate over using video or not for meetings.
thesumofall 5y ago
The studies I have seen say the exact opposite. Non-verbal cues make up most of the info flow: https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-much-of-communication-is-nonverbal https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-... If you feel your meetings don’t benefit from non-verbal cues, consider if you really need these meetings? Maybe it’s just a status call that could have also been solved via an online status tracker?
- osigurdson 5y ago
  The idea that we are communicating largely via body language and facial expressions is so absurd I had to look it up. The person who this is attributed to is Albert Mehrabian. According to wikipedia it is more related to the "liking" of the person who puts forth the same message delivered with various vocal tones with photographs of various facial expressions, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian
  - microjim 5y ago
    Pointless to squabble over the idea that there is some fixed 'proportion' so let me offer this - Body langugage and facial expressions are entire, distinct channels that primarily communicate information around emotion and attitude towards objects of attention. How relevant this information in any given situation is one question. The impact of those channels not being there, and the ability (let alone willingness) of senders and receivers (read: people in an interaction) to send and interpret that information over another channel is a whole other matter.
- kkfx 5y ago
  Sorry for the rude tone, but is useful to get to the point: non-verbal communication works they well in person, we understand others from it. With a webcam it's just a visual overload that distract and disturb. We have gone through the very same error for the entire IT history: after the Xerox era all tried to mimic the real life in a virtual one, like many GNU/Linux newcomers try to mimic Windows paradigm and some criminals with a keyboard improperly named developers sometimes even try that path. All such moves were big failure. The virtual world have it's rules, not the same of the physical one. We do NEVER try to mimic one in the other but to elicit the maximum profit from any tools. Working distributed is not "a way to be together but with physical distance", oh we see many consider that, we see even infra designed for that with crappy VDIs hosted somewhere to have "the virtual managed office" around the world, even some in the metaverse to try mimicking real life conferences rooms. See in the past General Magick UIs and you'll understand why that can't work. WFH is not work in a virtual office, we need a paradigm for it, witch is totally different than the in-person one.
smeej 5y ago
I thought this was true most of my life...until someone suggested to me that I had Asperger's. Upon deeper investigation, I found out (to my great surprise) that most people's experience of communication is different from mine in a profound way. They really are taking most of their cues about meaning from things other than my actual words, and they were trying to communicate a great many things to me without words that I was missing completely. I (obviously) don't know you from anyone, but if this claim has seemed as transparently false to you as it did to me, I'd just encourage you to try to keep your mind open to the possibility that your experience is anomalous. The good news is that once I knew this was true, I was able to focus on trying to learn to compensate. It's almost like people are speaking two languages at once, whatever they're saying out loud, and then another whole set of things in a kind of full body sign language that most of them picked up intuitively from earliest childhood and use constantly without even being aware they're doing it. All languages are learnable if you're determined, so once you know to look for them, you can start. If you want to come at it from a formal angle (which might be necessary), check out the old TV show "Lie to Me." It touches on the science of interpreting body expressions and facial cues. I think it'll help you see some of what I mean.

stult 5y ago

Faces are helpful for communicating around emotionally nuanced issues, which is usually not part of routine communications. So if it's a potentially emotionally charged conversation, maybe that should be the signal it's time to require cameras on.

grzm 5y ago

High definition audio is great. That said, upwards of 90% of human communication is non-verbal, including body language and facial expressions. One benefit of high-quality audio vs text is that we include intonation. But it doesn't encapsulate everything. This isn't to say we've cracked that nut with the current state of internet-transmitted video. A blanket "humans communicate via audio neglects these other channels of communication.

osigurdson 5y ago
> 90% of human communication is non-verbal, If true you should be able to communicate effectively without audio. Clearly this is not the case.
- grzm 5y ago
  raises eyebrows
- ccortes 5y ago
  You can with text
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    Parent misspoke and instead should have said 'you should be able to communicate effectively without words'. Obviously the fact that we're communicating 100% of our information currently using text shows that the 90% figure is extremely misleading. 90% of our understanding of a person's character or something maybe comes from their physicality.
  - osigurdson 5y ago
    The context of this discussion is Zoom/Teams type meetings. My point is that low latency audio is most important in these settings. Low latency is really the key and currently seems to be an unsolved problem in MS Teams at least.
- nikau 5y ago
  On the flip side I would probably pay more attention if meetings were done french mime style
louhike 5y ago
This 90% value is used too much without context. It is not something we can apply for all situation, or every type of information we want to convey. It’s almost seem like a magic joker when there s a debate over using video or not for meetings.

thesumofall 5y ago

The studies I have seen say the exact opposite. Non-verbal cues make up most of the info flow: https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-much-of-communication-is-nonverbal https://online.utpb.edu/about-us/articles/communication/how-... If you feel your meetings don’t benefit from non-verbal cues, consider if you really need these meetings? Maybe it’s just a status call that could have also been solved via an online status tracker?

osigurdson 5y ago
The idea that we are communicating largely via body language and facial expressions is so absurd I had to look it up. The person who this is attributed to is Albert Mehrabian. According to wikipedia it is more related to the "liking" of the person who puts forth the same message delivered with various vocal tones with photographs of various facial expressions, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Mehrabian
- microjim 5y ago
  Pointless to squabble over the idea that there is some fixed 'proportion' so let me offer this - Body langugage and facial expressions are entire, distinct channels that primarily communicate information around emotion and attitude towards objects of attention. How relevant this information in any given situation is one question. The impact of those channels not being there, and the ability (let alone willingness) of senders and receivers (read: people in an interaction) to send and interpret that information over another channel is a whole other matter.
kkfx 5y ago
Sorry for the rude tone, but is useful to get to the point: non-verbal communication works they well in person, we understand others from it. With a webcam it's just a visual overload that distract and disturb. We have gone through the very same error for the entire IT history: after the Xerox era all tried to mimic the real life in a virtual one, like many GNU/Linux newcomers try to mimic Windows paradigm and some criminals with a keyboard improperly named developers sometimes even try that path. All such moves were big failure. The virtual world have it's rules, not the same of the physical one. We do NEVER try to mimic one in the other but to elicit the maximum profit from any tools. Working distributed is not "a way to be together but with physical distance", oh we see many consider that, we see even infra designed for that with crappy VDIs hosted somewhere to have "the virtual managed office" around the world, even some in the metaverse to try mimicking real life conferences rooms. See in the past General Magick UIs and you'll understand why that can't work. WFH is not work in a virtual office, we need a paradigm for it, witch is totally different than the in-person one.

smeej 5y ago

I thought this was true most of my life...until someone suggested to me that I had Asperger's. Upon deeper investigation, I found out (to my great surprise) that most people's experience of communication is different from mine in a profound way. They really are taking most of their cues about meaning from things other than my actual words, and they were trying to communicate a great many things to me without words that I was missing completely. I (obviously) don't know you from anyone, but if this claim has seemed as transparently false to you as it did to me, I'd just encourage you to try to keep your mind open to the possibility that your experience is anomalous. The good news is that once I knew this was true, I was able to focus on trying to learn to compensate. It's almost like people are speaking two languages at once, whatever they're saying out loud, and then another whole set of things in a kind of full body sign language that most of them picked up intuitively from earliest childhood and use constantly without even being aware they're doing it. All languages are learnable if you're determined, so once you know to look for them, you can start. If you want to come at it from a formal angle (which might be necessary), check out the old TV show "Lie to Me." It touches on the science of interpreting body expressions and facial cues. I think it'll help you see some of what I mean.