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A theory of Zoom fatigue

theconvivialsociety.substack.com

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Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#171

Post by bluGill »

rcfox wrote: post #119
ken wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also played back a part of your own voice into your own earpiece, which helps make it sound like you’re in the same place. Zoom does not (at least AFAIK), so I have no way to judge if I’m speaking at an appropriate volume.

That's called sidetone. You really don't want your computer's sound system to generate that for you because the latency is even more distracting than not having it. It's much better to have it done in hardware, either by having the sound hardware direct mic input directly to the headset or with a headset that has it built in.

A good recoding system can do it in software and be acceptable. You can even do some filters on the output (recommend because the right over feedback to singers improves them) and get good results. You are allowed just over 5ms to do all of the above, which is possible but not easy.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#172

Post by bluGill »

nikanj wrote: post #82
jonshariat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. After reading the title, I immediately thought of the Doherty Threshold [1]. It states that if the system can respond to user actions and give the user feedback within 400ms, it increases users’ attention and productivity. That constant delay, plus the worse ones when the connection loses strength, put a constant toll on "zoom" conversations. I think that is the main factor but many of the items they brought…

I can't believe basic things like typing out an email in Outlook visibly lag at times. I'm a decent typist, but I find it absolutely ludicrous that this quad-core monster is at times half a word behind on my typing

I'm amused because I remember typing on an 8 bit computer over a 300 baud modem to a different 8 bit computer that was echoing back and it was always able to keep up. Like you I find anything that can't do as good as the above setup unacceptable. Too bad I can't get It to put some reasonable selection criteria in the system

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#173

Post by bluGill »

londons_explore wrote: post #136
djsumdog wrote: post #6

I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…

The real test if a decent VC or phone system is you can sing a song with the other person, and neither think they're out of sync. No modern system allows that. Some old ones (analogue TV) did.

If the other person isn't close to you no system can do it. At about 1000 miles you will be out of sync no matter what system. Sensitive singers will run into trouble at just 500 miles. Speed of light in different mediums is slower that vacuum, radio can probably get over 1000 miles if you can get line of sight.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#174

Post by bluGill »

dylan604 wrote: post #40
lostdog wrote: post #18

Lots of normal things about human interaction are broken in Zoom meetings. * You can't have a normal conversation with that much delay. Every time you talk you're probably interrupting someone, and that starts to wear on you. * You can't have any side chats with your neighbors before and after the meeting, making everyone seem less like a person. * You can't tell who's looking at you, so you always feel like you have…

So why the fixation on a video call? I'm probably just an old curmudgeon, but to me the benefits do not out weigh the oddities being discussed. Everyone wearing their pieces of flair with their "personalized" backgrounds are tiresome. I can see the benefits of a screen share/presentation, but I really don't need to see the other people involved. I don't care about tone of voice. I get sarcasm. For the people that don…

Different people think different. Some people would be happy with written only. Some people like audio even though it is slower. Some people need to see other people. It is all a compromise to get different people to work together. Sometimes that means that I use mediums of communication that don't work well for me.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#175

Post by sarah180 »

I have a simpler explanation, and my mantra for life.

  Are you finding something difficult?
  Is it something you've been doing frequently for a long time?
  If not, then of course it's difficult.
  Keep hope: We get good at the things we do in life.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#176

Post by MisterTea »

mhh__ wrote: post #167
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Data is the same - If I ping my next door neighbor, from my broadband connection to his, it goes via London (my ISP's headquarters) and Manchester (his ISP's headquarters) before coming back to him, with a round trip latency of >20ms. In sound terms, that delay is like him standing in the next room over. I feel like that would be enough to be basically perfect, though. If only we could cut down on everything else i…

I think the rule of thumb I used to go by when recording myself playing guitar was that 20ms was a noticeable delay, 100ms was sort of tolerable and anything more than that was enough to make my picking lose synchronization.

I remember hearing 16 ms being the general threshold for most people recognizing out of synch audio.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#177

Post by rcfox »

bluGill wrote: post #171
rcfox wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called sidetone. You really don't want your computer's sound system to generate that for you because the latency is even more distracting than not having it. It's much better to have it done in hardware, either by having the sound hardware direct mic input directly to the headset or with a headset that has it built in.

A good recoding system can do it in software and be acceptable. You can even do some filters on the output (recommend because the right over feedback to singers improves them) and get good results. You are allowed just over 5ms to do all of the above, which is possible but not easy.

Possible, sure. But I'd expect most systems running Zoom would have at least 10-20ms of buffering between audio capture to audio output.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#178

Post by as-j »

djsumdog wrote: post #6

I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…

> Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were?

They weren't always, except for local calls. My Background: I made a lot overseas phone calls in the 1980's to talk to my father, from North America to Japan. I also took a telecom class going through uni.

When calling Japan, not only was it crazy expensive, but the connection was typically terrible. We considered it amazing to be calling Japan at all, so that was ok. Issues:

1. Latency, just start talking when the ringing stops. If you wait to hear the person say "hello" they'd generally hang up before they heard you. Sometimes it would be around 5s latency, we always said this must be "satellite" connections vs using undersea cables.

2. Voice quality. You could hear and recognize the person on the far side, but that's about it.

3. Cost. I don't remember the cost exactly since I was young, but I remember it was between $2-$5/min in 1980's dollars. Calls were short.

Latency was a major focus of telecom networks for a couple of reasons. One was human, obviously humans really prefer low latency in telecom networks. Good old school POTS lines also have to sidetone[1] the old fashioned way, and if the round trip time gets too high it's really disruptive to hear your own voice > 300ms later. But this causes a big echo problem, so have a shorter round trip time makes the echo cancellation filters shorter/easier.

1) Sidetone is hearing your own voice come out of the speaker. Analog POTS lines are super cool this way, on longer connections the signal is weaker so the sidetone is weaker, so the human speaks louder. This means their own voice is louder so the person at the far end can hear them over the weaker signal.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#179

Post by zro »

notacoward wrote: post #121
killjoywashere wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the military. I have found that the habit of saying "over", learned as crowded circuit management for open radio circuits, is quite useful in teleconferences and VTCs, and for similar reason. It makes it clear that you're handing over the circuit. "Out" means you're leaving the circuit.

I think that can work well, as long as people also adopt the military/aviation habit of speaking crisply and not rambling on to hog the channel until they're absolutely sure they've emptied themselves of every possible thought they could ever have on the matter. Like I just did with every word after "rambling on". ;)

On the amateur radio side you see both types mixing in pretty amusing ways. On the one hand there's contesters and dx-ers that are all about confirming contacts as fast as they can, and on the other there's more casual people that'll talk about anything and everything that comes to mind. In my experience both sides use some amount of procdural language, but at very different cadences.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#180

Post by crazygringo »

lisper wrote: post #41
saurik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlines were so fast and so "direct" in their latency (where distance correlates very directly with time, due to a lack of "hops") that local phone calls were faster than the speed of sound across a table, and for a bit after they came out--before people generally got used to seemingly random latency--local calls felt "intimate", like as if you were talking to someone in bed with their head right next to you; I als…

I have very clear memories of my first overseas long-distance calls in the 1980s, which were over a satellite link. The latency was so pronounced (about half a second) that carrying out a conversation took quite a bit of practice. You almost had to carry out a formal protocol of handing over control of the line, as if you were on a walkie-talkie. I have equally clear memories of my first overseas calls carried by und…

If you use something like FaceTime over a cell phone, the audio quality is miles beyond anything any landline ever provided.
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