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The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

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Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#61

Post by thecoppinger »

sneak wrote: post #52
polishdude20 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I almost always minimize my own video on my screen. Just seeing myself makes me really self conscious.

Unless I’m presenting or speaking for more than an interjection, I generally turn off the sending of video. There’s little value (IMO) in 320p/720p low bitrate “facial expressions” which are just as often compression artifacts as they are information about emotional state. Maybe once video calls are routinely 1080p/2160p it will matter more, but 320p (the default for most systems today) at a low bitrate isn’t really…

> Contrariwise, when you are speaking/presenting, use an external camera (the one in your laptop/ipad/phone is optimized for thickness and thus the lens sucks) and a good soft key light.

I recently did a fair bit of research into this exact setup and landed on a Logitech StreamCam and a Elgato Key Light.

Well worth the money if you’re interested in achieving a high consumer grade level of quality, just be sure to purchase an adapter for the StreamCam as it is (infuriatingly) wired with a USB C connector.

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#62

Post by mclightning »

makeitdouble wrote: post #15
snek_case wrote: post #6

I think it's because, in real life, you can tell who's looking at you and when. There's key components of body language that are based in who is paying attention to who. In a videoconference, this is all missing. You can't tell who's looking at you or not, so that mean anyone could be looking at you, so you act like everyone is looking at you all the time, you feel the need to control your presentation more, that cau…

I think there is also the cultural assumption that you could always be away doing something else when on a call remotely. For instance, when everyone is in the same room, you’re manifesting you dedicated your time to the meeting. From there, even if participants look at their mail or do something that might not be related, or just look bored, there is some leeway given by the fact they are there in the first place. I…

My manager would ask everyone would to raise their hands from keyboard randomly in a half-joking manner... to ensure everyone is focusing to the meeting, and not working.

or, point out "hey you have something else on screen because white screenlight flashed on your face"

Leaving this company in a month, although they're paying me 2x the local average SE salary here in Sweden.

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#63

Post by cybervegan »

As an autistic person, I think this is a useful lesson for the neurotypical population on what we go through in daily life. Zoom fatigue seems to be very much like the social fatigue aspies tend to experience - where non-verbal cues are scrambled and hard to interpret to the point you spend a large amount of mental energy to try to compensate.

Welcome to our world, "normies" :-).

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#64

Post by tobr »

snek_case wrote: post #6

I think it's because, in real life, you can tell who's looking at you and when. There's key components of body language that are based in who is paying attention to who. In a videoconference, this is all missing. You can't tell who's looking at you or not, so that mean anyone could be looking at you, so you act like everyone is looking at you all the time, you feel the need to control your presentation more, that cau…

> You can't tell who's looking at you or not, so that mean anyone could be looking at you, so you act like everyone is looking at you all the time, you feel the need to control your presentation more,

so you keep staring at your own image, which means everyone is staring at their own image, which means no one is looking at your image, which means you don’t need to care what you look like,

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#65

Post by nickjj »

lostcolony wrote: post #24
desertraven wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't do video calls, but my partner does them often for work. The other day she mentioned that you're able to see who is looking at your video feed because their eyes looks directly at you (akin to them looking into the webcam). I'm not sure if she was mistaken, or if there's some kind of eye tracking/image processing stuff going on to do this. FYI it was Microsoft Teams.

Not at all true. For that to work, there would have to be, yes, eye tracking and a lot of image processing to change where your gaze appeared to be, but also knowledge of the physical size of the screen, the location of that particular person's feed on the screen, and where the screen is in relation to the camera. Now, it's possible that a lot of that could be inferred if it's assumed the screen is not moved in relat…

> oh, I should look at my camera when I am talking

I'm not a really outgoing person but when I talk in real life I'm one of those people who tend to look into someone's eyes a lot when talking and listening, probably 97% eye contact from my end if I had to guess. It feels very weird not to do this but looking into the webcam is much worse for me because you can't see the other person at the same time.

I haven't figured out why I prefer eye contact, but I wonder if it has to do with being able to see what the other person is doing and how they're reacting to the conversation. You can pick up a lot of information when looking at someone's face.

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#66

Post by cfn »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #22
Leszek wrote: post #20

Anecdotal, and I don't want it to sound like my example is intended to disprove this research or anyone else's experience, but I personally find it extremely fatiguing if people _don't_ turn on their video. More specifically, when I'm talking in a meeting or giving a presentation, I find it very helpful to see other people, see their reactions, see whether they laugh at jokes or look confused when I'm bad at explaini…

I've worked from home for a decade now, and I've found the people who want cameras on in meetings are the folks who don't normally work remote. They're not used to not seeing reactions, so it throws them when nobody has a camera on. The people who have worked remote for a while - at least since before covid - don't ever use their camera.

Same here. Video meetings used to be the exception but since last year it is rare that anyone uses sound only meetings. One thing that annoys me with video is that I try really hard to look directly into the camera but fail miserably and instead keep checking my image as if it was a mirror :)

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#67

Post by pc86 »

yosito wrote: post #50
crubier wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic reasoning will tell you that people who “look at you” during a video call are actually people who look at their camera.

> people who look at their camera You mean psychopaths?

What is "psychopathic" about taking other people into account when using video conferencing?

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#68

Post by marcosdumay »

tobr wrote: post #64
snek_case wrote: post #6

I think it's because, in real life, you can tell who's looking at you and when. There's key components of body language that are based in who is paying attention to who. In a videoconference, this is all missing. You can't tell who's looking at you or not, so that mean anyone could be looking at you, so you act like everyone is looking at you all the time, you feel the need to control your presentation more, that cau…

> You can't tell who's looking at you or not, so that mean anyone could be looking at you, so you act like everyone is looking at you all the time, you feel the need to control your presentation more, so you keep staring at your own image, which means everyone is staring at their own image, which means no one is looking at your image, which means you don’t need to care what you look like,

It's the Panopticon effect. It doesn't matter if there's somebody looking, what matters is that there may be, and you can't know.

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#69

Post by saiya-jin »

mclightning wrote: post #62
makeitdouble wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is also the cultural assumption that you could always be away doing something else when on a call remotely. For instance, when everyone is in the same room, you’re manifesting you dedicated your time to the meeting. From there, even if participants look at their mail or do something that might not be related, or just look bored, there is some leeway given by the fact they are there in the first place. I…

My manager would ask everyone would to raise their hands from keyboard randomly in a half-joking manner... to ensure everyone is focusing to the meeting, and not working. or, point out "hey you have something else on screen because white screenlight flashed on your face" Leaving this company in a month, although they're paying me 2x the local average SE salary here in Sweden.

There is nothing happy about working for control freaks, and slightly higher net salary won't magically turn it into a good place to work... sounds like a good idea to depart

Re: The Fatiguing Effects of Camera Use in Virtual Meetings [pdf]

#70

Post by thrower123 »

tsjq wrote: post #49
noisy_boy wrote: post #7

Several people on our team do not turn-on video during meetings. I also do not like to turn-on video for our stand-up calls - those are fact oriented and whatever I'm saying is sufficient to convey the details (one-on-one meetings would be a different scenario). Citrix on Linux seems to have issues exposing external webcams and this has worked to my advantage because once I found out about this issue, I simply presen…

yes. 95% of meetings at my office do not ask for video. one day the manager joked: "anyone who wants other parties to turn on video , should inform atleast a two hours in advance. we need to shave, find an ironed shirt and put it on, make arrangements for kids / pets to stay outside of the room."

Yes, this, absolutely, and unironically.

I'm still working on training people to give two hours notice in general for meetings, and some brief sketch of an agenda, so that it feels less like an ambush.

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