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Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

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Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#21

Post by softwaredoug »

In general I feel like we need richer and more informal ways of communicating than camera-conscious fatigue inducing video chat.

If the goal is to “build rapport” or “read subtleties in body language” - it seems other ways of interacting or opening up “extra channels” of info might be less stressful. And this could be a ripe place for experimentation.

Some things that have developed to close this gap:

- richer and richer emoji usage in chat?!?

- ad hoc audio features like slacks huddles. No pressure to appear on camera and no awkward pressure to fill a 30 min block.

- just general shitposting!?

- team metaverse style in browser games!?

These are initial, lame ideas. But they I think are all trying to solve this problem unconsciously.

Random longbet: in 10 years being on a video call with camera on, looking nice, paying attention, with the perfect office in the background will seem like stiff formalwear.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#22

Post by sergiotapia »

For my team I don't require people turn their camera off but you do need to read the room. Also, it's not good if you always have your camera off, it comes off as dickish. Turn it on every once in a while you're a human being not a voice in a box.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#25

Post by 1123581321 »

newsbinator wrote: post #15
crmd wrote: post #9

Much of communication is non-verbal. Why not increase the bandwidth of person-to-person communication?

This is commonly cited, but I wonder if anybody has studied how much communication happens by voice and screenshare, and whether there's a net loss compared to face-to-face. I get all my work communication done through voice and shared files. Am I missing information that would otherwise be encoded in implicit facial expressions? Or in the absence of faces, is that being conveyed to me anyway, through voice and expli…

I’ve never seen a good study. I’m sure you’ve seen that the old “70% of communication is nonverbal” canard is based on a game of telephone through a few articles and studies. But surely you’ve seen a person’s face communicate something different than what their voice is telling you? The more often you see someone’s face, the more you can pick up, too.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#26

Post by morgo »

I work remotely and I've decided that ON is the right choice for me. I made this choice when I started joining a lot of calls where they had to be in English because of me. I figured camera on was a good way to show I was paying attention.

However one of the perks of being a male is that society only ever expects me to take a shower to be presentable. So I'm totally cool if a colleague wants to leave the camera off even if it's a 1 on 1.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#27

Post by muzani »

I think the culture in my team has evolved to be camera off. Part of that is fuelled by poor bandwidth for certain people. We turn it on for certain events, as it adds an awkwardness when everyone is both cam off and muted, and you can't tell if they're laughing at your jokes.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#28

Post by wreath »

Being remote only decreases the human aspect of work a lot and makes your perception of your colleagues as unidimensional (they are whatever you make out of the text they write in a PR or a document) and not having camera on makes all this even worse. It depersonalizes work relationships.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#29

Post by zriha »

Well, a man gotta do what man gotta do. If you like the perks of working from home, no commuting, better time management etc.. you have to have some obligations.

For me, that obligation is to see your face on the meeting, because I would see your face on a real life meeting in person.

Why is that important, well, we can't substitute facial non verbal expressions by :) :( :/ etc...

I often present and give lectures, now remotely, and it's difficult to just watch your screen and slides, and you don't see reaction of the people who listens to you, not only audio reaction, but non-verbal, facial reaction.

So, for me it's a basic thing, if you seat at home, work, remotely, the bare minimum is to turn on your camera, especially if you work in fully remote international company where you have never meet your colleagues.

Re: Ask HN: If you're in a 100% remote role, should you turn your camera on?

#30

Post by rzz3 »

julianlam wrote: post #16
newsbinator wrote: post #5

I don't like being on camera and I'd wager many (if not most) people don't. We do it because we have to, not because we want to. And I don't have to because I don't work with clients or take roles in which me being on camera for more than 5 minutes during the entire duration of the role is a requirement. Between voice and screen sharing, we can handle all business without monitoring each other's 2-dimensional faces.

Perhaps I'm vain, but I like to be on the camera during meetings. It's that one little extra iota of personalization. So I'm speaking to my team's faces, and vice versa, instead of just speaking to coloured circles with letters in them. I don't begrudge others to have their cameras on, but if someone else has it on, I'll turn mine on.

For me, it depends on the meeting. For discussions with the same people I talk to every day, when none of us prefer camera, we typically don’t. In a 1:1, I do. In a meeting with another team, I do. I find having my camera on to be taxing, and I’m not always exactly looking fresh and clean and shaved for work. Often wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. Often sitting in a messy office. The focus is on work, not optics during conversations generally.
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