Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
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Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#2Good article. I completely agree - video chat is inappropriate in a lot of situations, but very useful in situations where you're trying to create/maintain some social bond. I'd never really used it prior to this year while my wife is working abroad, but now we almost always use it to chat. The feeling of connection with the other person is dramatically better when you can actually see them.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#3because it's very awkward that the camera is not in the same place you are looking. You're looking at the monitor, when the webcam is most often above the monitor. So all the viewer (and vice versa) sees is you looking down.
It's not "eye-to-eye" conversation. If you want the other person to feel like they are looking at you, you have to look dead into the camera. But then you miss out on seeing the other person.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#4Because I don't want clients seeing me in boxers, white teeshirt (usually stained with coffee because I have the motor skills of an infant), mussy hair, and a couple of days beard growth while I'm talking about the website/app they're trusting me with actual money to build.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#5because it's very awkward that the camera is not in the same place you are looking. You're looking at the monitor, when the webcam is most often above the monitor. So all the viewer (and vice versa) sees is you looking down. It's not "eye-to-eye" conversation. If you want the other person to feel like they are looking at you, you have to look dead into the camera. But then you miss out on seeing the other person.
This kind of goes away on the phone though.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#6because it's very awkward that the camera is not in the same place you are looking. You're looking at the monitor, when the webcam is most often above the monitor. So all the viewer (and vice versa) sees is you looking down. It's not "eye-to-eye" conversation. If you want the other person to feel like they are looking at you, you have to look dead into the camera. But then you miss out on seeing the other person.
This.
Video chat fails at providing an emotional connection because of this. It leaves you feeling like you are talking past someone. It's a fundamental problem with the technology that can't really be solved unless we literally put a camera in the middle of the screen.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#7As they say in TV, video chatting with your clothes on is a bit pointless.
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#8I wonder how much of this is generational-- my teenage daughter probably videochats more in a week than I have in my life.
I think that over the longue duree, a lot of technology shifts occur not because individuals gradually get convinced to move to the new technology, but because the folks clinging to the old ways eventually die out. (I'm paraphrasing Kuhn on paradigm change in science, of course.)
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#9because it's very awkward that the camera is not in the same place you are looking. You're looking at the monitor, when the webcam is most often above the monitor. So all the viewer (and vice versa) sees is you looking down. It's not "eye-to-eye" conversation. If you want the other person to feel like they are looking at you, you have to look dead into the camera. But then you miss out on seeing the other person.
This. Video chat fails at providing an emotional connection because of this. It leaves you feeling like you are talking past someone. It's a fundamental problem with the technology that can't really be solved unless we literally put a camera in the middle of the screen.
Is this possible?
Re: Why Don’t We Video Chat More Often?
#10because it's very awkward that the camera is not in the same place you are looking. You're looking at the monitor, when the webcam is most often above the monitor. So all the viewer (and vice versa) sees is you looking down. It's not "eye-to-eye" conversation. If you want the other person to feel like they are looking at you, you have to look dead into the camera. But then you miss out on seeing the other person.
This. Video chat fails at providing an emotional connection because of this. It leaves you feeling like you are talking past someone. It's a fundamental problem with the technology that can't really be solved unless we literally put a camera in the middle of the screen.
I believe Apple actually filed a patent for a screen with an embedded camera. I don't know how technologically/economically feasible it would be to actually make and integrate into devices.
Article: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/08/apple_files_pa...
Patent: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se...