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Video calls shut my brain down Honestly there's very little good about video calls. I would prefer In-Person ideally, but if that is not possible, it is always

Video calls shut my brain down Honestly there's very little good about video calls. I would prefer In-Person ideally, but if that is not possible, it is always more productive to just use slack or email. Or just a short audio call.

billti 4y ago
I think part of the problem is that video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting (e.g. a topic that doesn't apply to you, or just a very dry discussion). Once your attention wanders elsewhere, its hard to reengage meaningfully. I love working from home more these days, but those days I do go into the office I find that meetings are way more engaging and productive. Being face-to-face with folks it's just much harder to disengage and focus attention elsewhere.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  In one on ones, or small groups, maybe, but most of my meetings are just board rooms full of glassy eyed people, staring, trying not to look like they're going to fall asleep, caching JUST enough of what's being said to respond without looking entirely stupid if called on by the only person who actually cares about the meeting: the person running it. Most meetings can (and in my opinion should) be emails or chat messages. My rule is that I only go to meetings where there is a demonstration of some kind that cant be sent in an email, or cake.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Starting at 4:10, from the video: "People think there is more social connection.. ..but we found the exact opposite. So we found in the virtual condition, people are looking significantly more at their partner, almost double." If anything, the video suggests video calls are problematic because individuals focus too much on being presentable and looking at their conference partners, rather than putting their focus on the actual activity. Quite the opposite of tuning out deliberately (even if this is still possible).
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    Which is why turning off self-view can make for a huge difference.
- technovader 4y ago
  for me the biggest problem is how the flow of natural conversation is broken in video calls. 1 person gets to talk as long as they dont get interrupted or leave a long enough gap for other folks to speak up. its like talking but with a 5 second latency. so what ends up happening is people dont like to be rude, so they dont speak up unless theres a long gap of silence. but gaps dont happen because usually 1-2 people hoard the discussion, you know the type who never pause between sentences and drone on and on. in real life those people would be sidelined because people look away and have side conversations. but in a virtual meeting these people hijack every conversation for the entire hour
  - chc 4y ago
    Absolutely. Sometimes with coworkers I'm relatively close to, we'll have those side conversations in a Slack chat...but then that's just making the argument for Slack.
  - doubled112 4y ago
    I constantly accidentally interrupt in video calls. I had a hard time with long distance on phones as a kid too. Not sure if I'm the problem or the tech.
  - justinlloyd 4y ago
    Then that is a failure of the person running the meeting. You, as an individual, can also deploy several redirection techniques to shut those people down in either virtual meetings or in-person meetings. Tacit approval is either given by non-verbal acknowledgement (looking at them), vocalized agreement, e.g. "uhuh", "yeah", "and then what happened?", or by silence. I have an internal count that I do when someone starts talking and I become conscious of the interlocutor: "Hey, I need to interject, you raise a valid point about X but I have a question around it, <name of other participant>, what do you think of <completely unrelated subject>?" And you repeat the "Hey, I need to interject,hey, I have a question, Hey, I need to interject" until the other person stops long enough. Some days, you just have to be firm and get into the conversation. You can also just butt in with "Hey, that's interesting but it sounds like we are lost in the technical weeds, could we please take this offline or move it to a different meeting?" If the person running the meeting doesn't pick up on that, they shouldn't be running the meeting. I also like to drop in "Hey, I have to cut this short, I've got another meeting I need to run too, can we move this along?" People are very unaware when talking on the phone or in a video meeting. Like literally they become deaf. After three or four attempts of interjecting in a very short period of time of just 15 seconds or so, if the person isn't listening, I've just started talking directly to the meeting running directly over them and saying "we need to move on. Can you mute him?" It might be considered rude, but it's what everyone is thinking.
- greymalik 4y ago
  > video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting I’d argue that it’s no different from in-person unless you ban laptops and cell phones from the meeting.
  - WJW 4y ago
    Even when no laptops or phones are present, people who are not interested in the current topic will find a way to zone out. Especially in longer meetings with more than 4-5 people it is an illusion to have everybody engaged all the time.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > I think part of the problem is that video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting (e.g. a topic that doesn't apply to you, or just a very dry discussion). Once your attention wanders elsewhere, its hard to reengage meaningfully. This is as true in in-person meetings where people are allowed to bring in their laptops. It was a common problem pre-pandemic, and I'd often criticize meeting organizers for having a poor meeting format (e.g. team meeting every week or two weeks with unclear agendas, or having agenda items where each item only involves 1-3 people, but since it's a different set of 1-3 people for each agenda item, everyone is forced to be present for the whole meeting, etc).
robonerd 4y ago
I miss landline telephones. For whatever reason, the audio clarity of video conferencing still has not touched the quality we used to get out of old fashioned analogue over copper.
- gregmac 4y ago
  Clearly false. Analog voice service is limited to 300–3,300 Hz, and being analog, subject to line noise/static/etc. About the only constant with it was that people would hold handsets up to their heads that were purpose-built, and reliably had a decent minimal level of quality. With IP-based conferencing, you get as good as the worst link. A lot of people use built-in microphones on their laptops in a noisy room, and so the audio sounds like garbage. The people with consistently high quality have gaming-style headsets (or really, any >$100 headset). There's a couple people I talk with that have (inexpensive) studio-style microphones on boom arms, and they sound phenomenal. Of course it could be you. If you're listening using garbage headphones or the built-in speakers in your laptop, it doesn't really matter how great other people's microphones are. You're clearly misremembering the quality of analog phone lines; at their worst they're better than a bad IP-based service, but at their best they are blown out of the water by people that put even a modicum of effort into their setup.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Jitter and buffer bloat are huge issues with VoIP. People that deploy audio VoIP solutions often terminate VoIP at the nearest router to the WAN they can and use DECT to serve wireless VoIP phones because of how bad WiFi can be for jitter. It's not as simple as your setup and codecs.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Some of it might be nostalgia, but some of it is definitely latency and jitter. Even into the 90s there was only so much latency on a phone call and most phone lines tried their hardest to _act_ circuit-switched. The average video caller is on WiFi, so there's packet buffering at the AP (which can be quite large since most people are running meh quality consumer routers at home), again at the router, then however many hops until the RTP endpoint. Jitter can be quite large. That doesn't even get into the scourge that is modern NAT and the possibility of TURN relays along the way. One quick "hack" is to do your conferencing on a box connected to your router via Ethernet (or through switches). It can help bad connection paths but it's not a panacea. Another is if you have a slow internet connection, try to get a router with QoS and apply that to prioritize your VoIP packets. Unfortunately other than cellular standards, there's no good way way to easily get a low latency, low jitter connection as most packet switching is optimized around throughput. Personally we use Zoom at work and I know the Zoom edge has low jitter to me so if anyone needs to VC me at work, they should get "as good as it gets". For my personal VC needs I ended up using Matrix and hosting a TURN server in a DC that peers directly with my ISP. Folks in my area can call me on it through WebRTC and get latency on the 3-6ms range.
r00fus 4y ago
I hardly use video on my meetings. I tend to use screenshare and voice only except in circumstances where a higher fidelity is required. I find working together on a document keeps attendees focused (along with a few tips/tricks like polling individuals, aligning current discussion with others' previously stated ideas and writing what people say as verbatim as possible)

billti 4y ago

I think part of the problem is that video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting (e.g. a topic that doesn't apply to you, or just a very dry discussion). Once your attention wanders elsewhere, its hard to reengage meaningfully. I love working from home more these days, but those days I do go into the office I find that meetings are way more engaging and productive. Being face-to-face with folks it's just much harder to disengage and focus attention elsewhere.

fartcannon 4y ago
In one on ones, or small groups, maybe, but most of my meetings are just board rooms full of glassy eyed people, staring, trying not to look like they're going to fall asleep, caching JUST enough of what's being said to respond without looking entirely stupid if called on by the only person who actually cares about the meeting: the person running it. Most meetings can (and in my opinion should) be emails or chat messages. My rule is that I only go to meetings where there is a demonstration of some kind that cant be sent in an email, or cake.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Starting at 4:10, from the video: "People think there is more social connection.. ..but we found the exact opposite. So we found in the virtual condition, people are looking significantly more at their partner, almost double." If anything, the video suggests video calls are problematic because individuals focus too much on being presentable and looking at their conference partners, rather than putting their focus on the actual activity. Quite the opposite of tuning out deliberately (even if this is still possible).
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  Which is why turning off self-view can make for a huge difference.
technovader 4y ago
for me the biggest problem is how the flow of natural conversation is broken in video calls. 1 person gets to talk as long as they dont get interrupted or leave a long enough gap for other folks to speak up. its like talking but with a 5 second latency. so what ends up happening is people dont like to be rude, so they dont speak up unless theres a long gap of silence. but gaps dont happen because usually 1-2 people hoard the discussion, you know the type who never pause between sentences and drone on and on. in real life those people would be sidelined because people look away and have side conversations. but in a virtual meeting these people hijack every conversation for the entire hour
- chc 4y ago
  Absolutely. Sometimes with coworkers I'm relatively close to, we'll have those side conversations in a Slack chat...but then that's just making the argument for Slack.
- doubled112 4y ago
  I constantly accidentally interrupt in video calls. I had a hard time with long distance on phones as a kid too. Not sure if I'm the problem or the tech.
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  Then that is a failure of the person running the meeting. You, as an individual, can also deploy several redirection techniques to shut those people down in either virtual meetings or in-person meetings. Tacit approval is either given by non-verbal acknowledgement (looking at them), vocalized agreement, e.g. "uhuh", "yeah", "and then what happened?", or by silence. I have an internal count that I do when someone starts talking and I become conscious of the interlocutor: "Hey, I need to interject, you raise a valid point about X but I have a question around it, <name of other participant>, what do you think of <completely unrelated subject>?" And you repeat the "Hey, I need to interject,hey, I have a question, Hey, I need to interject" until the other person stops long enough. Some days, you just have to be firm and get into the conversation. You can also just butt in with "Hey, that's interesting but it sounds like we are lost in the technical weeds, could we please take this offline or move it to a different meeting?" If the person running the meeting doesn't pick up on that, they shouldn't be running the meeting. I also like to drop in "Hey, I have to cut this short, I've got another meeting I need to run too, can we move this along?" People are very unaware when talking on the phone or in a video meeting. Like literally they become deaf. After three or four attempts of interjecting in a very short period of time of just 15 seconds or so, if the person isn't listening, I've just started talking directly to the meeting running directly over them and saying "we need to move on. Can you mute him?" It might be considered rude, but it's what everyone is thinking.
greymalik 4y ago
> video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting I’d argue that it’s no different from in-person unless you ban laptops and cell phones from the meeting.
- WJW 4y ago
  Even when no laptops or phones are present, people who are not interested in the current topic will find a way to zone out. Especially in longer meetings with more than 4-5 people it is an illusion to have everybody engaged all the time.
BeetleB 4y ago
> I think part of the problem is that video calls make it super-easy to context switch and do something else the minute the meeting becomes uninteresting (e.g. a topic that doesn't apply to you, or just a very dry discussion). Once your attention wanders elsewhere, its hard to reengage meaningfully. This is as true in in-person meetings where people are allowed to bring in their laptops. It was a common problem pre-pandemic, and I'd often criticize meeting organizers for having a poor meeting format (e.g. team meeting every week or two weeks with unclear agendas, or having agenda items where each item only involves 1-3 people, but since it's a different set of 1-3 people for each agenda item, everyone is forced to be present for the whole meeting, etc).

robonerd 4y ago

I miss landline telephones. For whatever reason, the audio clarity of video conferencing still has not touched the quality we used to get out of old fashioned analogue over copper.

gregmac 4y ago
Clearly false. Analog voice service is limited to 300–3,300 Hz, and being analog, subject to line noise/static/etc. About the only constant with it was that people would hold handsets up to their heads that were purpose-built, and reliably had a decent minimal level of quality. With IP-based conferencing, you get as good as the worst link. A lot of people use built-in microphones on their laptops in a noisy room, and so the audio sounds like garbage. The people with consistently high quality have gaming-style headsets (or really, any >$100 headset). There's a couple people I talk with that have (inexpensive) studio-style microphones on boom arms, and they sound phenomenal. Of course it could be you. If you're listening using garbage headphones or the built-in speakers in your laptop, it doesn't really matter how great other people's microphones are. You're clearly misremembering the quality of analog phone lines; at their worst they're better than a bad IP-based service, but at their best they are blown out of the water by people that put even a modicum of effort into their setup.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  Jitter and buffer bloat are huge issues with VoIP. People that deploy audio VoIP solutions often terminate VoIP at the nearest router to the WAN they can and use DECT to serve wireless VoIP phones because of how bad WiFi can be for jitter. It's not as simple as your setup and codecs.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Some of it might be nostalgia, but some of it is definitely latency and jitter. Even into the 90s there was only so much latency on a phone call and most phone lines tried their hardest to _act_ circuit-switched. The average video caller is on WiFi, so there's packet buffering at the AP (which can be quite large since most people are running meh quality consumer routers at home), again at the router, then however many hops until the RTP endpoint. Jitter can be quite large. That doesn't even get into the scourge that is modern NAT and the possibility of TURN relays along the way. One quick "hack" is to do your conferencing on a box connected to your router via Ethernet (or through switches). It can help bad connection paths but it's not a panacea. Another is if you have a slow internet connection, try to get a router with QoS and apply that to prioritize your VoIP packets. Unfortunately other than cellular standards, there's no good way way to easily get a low latency, low jitter connection as most packet switching is optimized around throughput. Personally we use Zoom at work and I know the Zoom edge has low jitter to me so if anyone needs to VC me at work, they should get "as good as it gets". For my personal VC needs I ended up using Matrix and hosting a TURN server in a DC that peers directly with my ISP. Folks in my area can call me on it through WebRTC and get latency on the 3-6ms range.

r00fus 4y ago

I hardly use video on my meetings. I tend to use screenshare and voice only except in circumstances where a higher fidelity is required. I find working together on a document keeps attendees focused (along with a few tips/tricks like polling individuals, aligning current discussion with others' previously stated ideas and writing what people say as verbatim as possible)