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Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

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Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#81

Post by abvdasker »

z3t4 wrote: post #53
tzs wrote: post #36

> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building successful teams, according to research Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift. In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams. EverQuest in particular in its first several years r…

Every time i read about how hard it is to manage remote teams i think they have never played a mmo or been in a game clan.

I think there's a fundamental difference in underlying motivation which probably changes the dynamic. With work most people would rather be doing something else. For a game there's nothing else most people would rather be doing. I can't prove this, but I bet group cohesion and effectiveness is much higher for teams in which the members' motivation is intrinsic (fun) vs extrinsic (money).

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#82

Post by KallDrexx »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #52
KallDrexx wrote: post #28

My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.

From a paper I wrote on the downsides of using video for mediation: "The most important element of body language is eye contact. “Gaze is vital in the flow of natural communication, monitoring of feedback, regulating turn taking, and punctuating emotion. The lack of eye contact shows timidity, embarrassment, shyness, uncertainty and social awkwardness. (Edelmann and Hampson [1]).” Having a camera on top of a monitor,…

That's interesting. If having a monitor above the monitor makes it seem like you are gazing down (timid) then is there anything about having the webcam near the bottom of the monitor (nose cam in dells or just putting a webcam below it on the desk)?

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#83

Post by petra »

clan wrote: post #41
KallDrexx wrote: post #28

My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.

Agree. The importance of eye contact cannot be overstated. I have a 43" screen. I bought a very small but generic UVC camera on AliExpress. With this I can lower the camera down on the screen without be too obtrusive while dangling on the wire. This gives a really great result even if the change is just on my end. People seems much more "present". I can only imagine how "real" it would feel if done on both ends. Befo…

Interesting. I want to try this.

Could you share you camera number/link and your setup(pc or living room, distance) ?

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#84

Post by justwalt »

czbond wrote: post #49

Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions. A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at 'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even thoug…

These tips all seem rational and effective. Thanks for posting!

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#85

Post by chillacy »

gamereality wrote: post #61
tzs wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What factors do you imagine would make it so that in, say, classic EverQuest people can form entirely online teams that work well together to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation that would not also apply to "real life" teams working to accomplish lengthy tasks that require a high level of trust and cooperation?

The stakes in video games are imaginary. Trust between real people in real life is completely different. For soldiers, athletes and even business leaders, the stakes are real and having an in-person relationship makes a difference.

The stakes in pro sports are just as arbitrary and "imaginary" as in games... I know a lot of people who care more about their standing in a guild than in real life. At the end of the day it's still playing out in the brain just as real as any other competition.

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#86

Post by leephillips »

enobrev wrote: post #59
leephillips wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit off-topic, but I can’t seem to use Zoom on my Ubuntu laptop with either Chrome or Firefox. As soon as I enter a call, it sucks up all the available memory until the tab, browser, or whole UI crashes. I can use jit.si or Google meetings with no problem. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 on my laptop and desktop. I haven't tried in the browser, but the installed app seems to work well for me on both.

I used that once, successfully. Then I reconfigured my system and uninstalled a particular input method, and the app refuses to run without it. So my comment was about the in-browser version. I know they all use the same browser APIs, so it's interesting that some work well but Zoom won’t work at all.

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#87

Post by ogrisel »

tzs wrote: post #36

> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building successful teams, according to research Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift. In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams. EverQuest in particular in its first several years r…

and github.

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#88

Post by [deleted] »

tchock23 wrote: post #34

I wonder how much of this is 2D/3D and a feeling of “presence.” Anecdotally, I’ve been playing various games in VR with friends & family and it just feels so much more like I’m there. I’d be interested to see research on building trust in virtual 3D environments vs. 2D video chat. Also, the email vs. in-person donation research didn’t make sense to me. Of course someone that asks you for a donation in-person will get…

[deleted]

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#89

Post by parliament32 »

z3t4 wrote: post #53
tzs wrote: post #36

> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building successful teams, according to research Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift. In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams. EverQuest in particular in its first several years r…

Every time i read about how hard it is to manage remote teams i think they have never played a mmo or been in a game clan.

Exactly. If you've ever run an EVE corporation you probably have more business management skills that most MBAs.

Re: Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust?

#90

Post by parliament32 »

KallDrexx wrote: post #28

My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.

I try to look at the camera when I'm speaking rather than the screen, but you're right -- that's not real eye contact.
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