It's not just cultural. We've evolved to recognize eye-contact. Newborn babies immediately know when you look at them. Eye contact with a dog communicates domin

It's not just cultural. We've evolved to recognize eye-contact. Newborn babies immediately know when you look at them. Eye contact with a dog communicates dominance. You've just acclimated to losing that signal during video chats. Bring it back, and you'll have a richer experience. More generally, we have evolved special neural hardware to recognize gaze, with a special case for when gaze is directed at our eyes. Gaze is important because it's a sign of where people are attending. And as Herb Simon said: "in the information age, attention is the scarce resource."