Eye Contact | Hacker News Reader

Eye Contact

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

83 pointsbootload52 comments

"... I want to be looked at. And honestly, I’m not an exhibitionist. It’s just that eye contact has gone the way of proper enunciation, a good handshake and a hug that means something — casualties of modern life. ..."

Gaining eye contact - the face and body as well - means people can see what you are saying matches what you actually think. This type of analysis is understood intuitively by some but there is some science behind the gestures of which the work of Paul Enkman is most interesting ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman TV watchers might recognise his work in "Lie to me" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me

The "handshake" and "hug" serve numerous functions, one I've always found interesting is the "oxytocin" hack ~ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral-molecule/20081...

*Ekman

"... Ekman ..."

Thanks DTrejo, you would think I'd get the name right. I was thinking Venkman ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Venkman

One thing I noticed about France vs. the US is that in the cafe culture in France means it's fine to "stare" at passersby as you sit, slowly sipping your espresso. (Often, all the chairs face the street -- such as in this photo http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-99/cafe-thumb.jpg). No one minds you "staring" as they walk by.

In America, if you watch passersby on the street you can tell they get uncomfortable.

On the other hand, the stock photo on that page is a good example of somewhere the French don't make eye contact -- on the Metro.

I am told it has something to do with the fact that you don't have a choice in being there, so people want the illusion of privacy.

It may has to do with adaptation in human behavior when others enters their "personal space", in a crowded metro train, for example.

I've noticed that people make more eye contact outside of New York. For New Yorkers, this means that you'd like to consider sex, fighting, or some combo of the two. As such, a trip outside of the city can be quite jarring.

I have heard this, but not noticed it--I make eye contact all the time on the subway, and I have not once had someone talk back to me, much less initiate sex or violence. This might be a size thing (too fat to be sexy, too big to be worth fighting), but I honestly suspect that New Yorkers exaggerate the city's hostility in this respect. Eye contact is too primal to change this fast, or to vary this much by geography.

When I was in New York in November people seemed quite friendly to me, and did not evade eye contact. (There were even people who gave out free hugs on Union Square.)

But then, I was growing up in former Prussia. So I may have other standards than Americans.

I htink it depends on when someone lived in NYC and which train they took. If you were here during the late 80s early 90s, you heard a lot more of "What the fuck are you looking at!?". I saw at least 3-4 fights start that way.

Now this is a purely anecdotal correlation, but I noticed less and less of this kind of crap at the same time as crime was purportedly going down in the city. I know that there are a million ideas floating around about the reason for the drop in crime (abortion, "broken windows", etc.), but I'd like to see at least one of them incorporate the "chill out factor". Maybe for some reason NYC residents just became slightly less aggressive ?....Nah that's just crazy talk :)

Why was there a big drop in crime for NYC in the '90's? Sometimes just one man can make all the difference. From Wikipedia:

Rudy Giuliani served two terms as Mayor of New York City... He was credited with initiating improvements in the city's quality of life and with a reduction in crime.

People in New York are actually quite hospitable. They just have places to be, things to do, and they are tired of explaining which way is downtown and bumping into people who are too busy looking up. I find that a calm smile and a friendly tone of voice goes a lot further in New York than in most cities. People are more genuine there. If you get a negative response, that person is just trying to save you both some time.

> If you get a negative response, that person is just trying to save you both some time.

Really? So I should be thanking the nice man for saying, "Fuck you! Get outta my way you mutherfucker?" After all he was just being considerate and trying to help us both out.

Yes.

Did you really get that response? Like any place, NYC has its share of jerks, but since coming here 3 years ago I never encountered anything like that..

Thats the funniest thing I have read in a long time. :)

I have been living in NY for about 10 years now and I can tell you that I never had problem. But more often than not people don't make eye contact here in NY they stare at you.

Of course, this all depends on where in NY you are. In NY, there are micro-communities within communities and they have their own rules. Some may consider making eye-contact offensive, other may not.

The thing about NYC is that there are just so many people you can find someone to fit any stereotype so it is easy to reinforce preconceived notions. If you get on the subway with the attitude that there are a lot of people ready to fight if you look at them the wrong way you will be able to find one.

The rule of thumb for eye contact with strangers (this is what I learned in a character analysis for film) is that beyond a time limit of 3 seconds the two characters will either A) get into a fist fight or B) start making passionate love.

It seems that the human race is the only one that does not feel threatened by eye contact longer than half a second.

An accident happened in Rotterdam Zoo early 2007 a gorilla jumped over 4 meter of water to attack a woman who did look too much at him. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/605817/the_great_escape_of_gor... Special weird-looking glasses are now distributed to avoid this kind of problem again. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/gorilla-viewing-glas.ht...

This might be linked.

Are you sure? Go and stare for several minutes right into the eyes of the biggest, toughest-looking stranger you can find, and see what happens. Eye contact is always an effort to communicate something, and it can easily be interpreted as a challenge.

Sorry, what I say was probably not clear enough. I agree with you, eye contact is a way to communicate something. It may be defiance (that's what I meant by "it might be linked"), but it could also be seduction, fear, friendly etc. And we can accept most looks much longer than animals.

I just had a strange experience in Paris subway : a complete stranger on the platform (seemed tough) and I on the train did catch each other looks for a good few seconds and ended up smiling at each other. It was not the first time that I put myself in a friendly mood and got friendly looks back at me. Pretty unusual, as shown in this (french) cartoon http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7fp4s_18-baston-de-regard_... (you don't need to understand French to get it)

The first rule of working with non-human primates: don't make eye contact. The second rule of working with non-human primates: don't make eye contact. The third rule: take a guess. Etc.

Generation ADD

I don't know what NJ is like, but come to SF. You won't see an eyeball for months ... unless you wear an iphone on your face.

It has to do with asian population also. They tend to look away, and not stare, or feel uncomfortable with it. Since asians are about 30-40% of the area, it sets the tone that eye contact is rude.

That's a pretty sweeping generalization there. If you could substantiate it more, I might like to hear what you have to say.

NJ is the same. I work near the city in hoboken, people on the PATH (train between NY and NJ) are always staring at their smartphones. I was sitting in the PATH the other night though, and two guys started a conversation with me about my droid, if that counts...

I live in suburbia in NJ though, which is pretty different. When I'm out running or biking I try to say hi to other pedestrians and they typically reciprocate.

I've been doing this eye-contact experiment, i.e., making eye contact with random people in public places and waiting to see how they react. Reaction in Poland: look away. Reaction in Switzerland: look away. Reaction in California: smile and say "Hi!"

Swedes avoid making eye contact with strangers like it was the plague, a lot of effort is put into not getting caught looking at someone on public transportation or as you pass people on the street.

My friends from CA were really bad at keeping eye contact during conversations and was really off putting at first as I figured they weren't interested anything I was saying, so I kept switching topics until I figured out what was happening and asked them about it and if I was staring ("little bit").

Does anyone else think the ranking algorithm should put additional weight to comments than it currently does?

Increasingly I see stories with a lot of upvotes and few to no comments. Big downer for me--I tend to get as much if not more from the discussions than the story itself. If a story isn't provoking discussion(relative to the upvotes), that should be a notch against it.

I actually disagree. A high upvote to comment ratio is usually indicative of a great link.

Fair enough, I'm in the clear minority:)

I too prefer to read those articles with many comments. (I usually read comments first, and then decide based on that if I should bother reading the article). However, I do not think the ranking needs to change, the number of comments is clearly visible on the home page, it's easy to just skip those links with little or no comments.

It's indicative of a link that answers a question, not one that asks it. So what you should weigh is controversy / (votes / comments). A high-vote, low-comment article about abortion has clearly resolved the issue; a low-vote, high-comment issue about creationism has probably just asked stupid questions in a provocative way.

A high-vote, low-comment article about abortion has clearly resolved the issue

Well, perhaps that's a bit optimistic on that topic... :)

What about the links where the information is basically just an announcement (see the links related to Google's public DNS servers) and a ton of discussion is then generated here over 'what this means', etc?

It depends on timing, too - there have been several times where an interesting and fairly substantial link was posted, and discussion seemed to hold off for half and hour or so because people were actually reading it.

Oddly, I tend to get the opposite impression: If a lot of people voted a story up, yet few people felt the need to add something, complain about it, ask questions, &c., it suggests that it's something both very interesting and high quality.

Conversely, few upvotes and lots of comments seems like a warning sign about the article.

I've noticed this about America. My formative instincts about eye contact and communication come from my Russian upbringing as a small child; we left when I was 6 1/2, but by that point I had acquired (and continued to acquire) the mannerisms of my parents and close acquaintances from that culture. So, all that the author describes strikes me as strange and inhuman. I would say the Russian urban viewpoint on this is rather inspired by Western European principles - and especially French, given the Francophilia that characterised turn-of-the-century aristocracy from which many of these normative attitudes flowed downward.

I always unconsciously look at people, and very occasionally catch myself and wonder if they think I am "staring," although I generally carry a friendly expression rather than the sort of impersonal neutrality that seems to me to be what people mean when they describe "creepy" staring. I must surely be branded a "weirdo" more than I realise, though.

Eye contact and a warm handshake go a long way. Whether you are try to get the VC to give you money or the pretty girl to go on a date.

the biggest change in how people reacted to me (coming from an extreme introverted childhood) was making eye contact with people.

Change, how so? Would you care to elaborate?

people opening up to me and being friendly in general. as another commenter mentioned, people use your eyes to gauge things like sincerity and how much you like them (pupil dilation). let me put it this way: NOT making eye contact sends strong signals.

Sorry to be a bit killjoy here, especially since the article is interesting and entertaining.

But what does this has to do with hacking ?

An interesting experiment to try is to spend one day walking around making eye contact with everyone who passes by, and another walking around not making eye contact with people.

In my experience, my day always ends up being better when I'm making eye contact. Not only do I not bump into people (because I can tell where they are going), generally you get better responses from people, as they see you as being more approachable/honest/etc. People remember you.

On the flip side, if you have a desire to be invisible, walk around not making eye contact. Hardly anyone will remember who you are.

That's purely anecdotal, but try it for yourself.

But it is weird to just stare at people, you have to also smile and say 'hi' or 'hello'.

then again, that might vie into the range of basic human hospitability.

Level of acknowledgement of strangers is a function of population density. In a big city you can't possibly acknowledge everybody you pass, so you acknowledge nobody. There's one exception: people who go for walks early in the morning are often keen to greet one another; partly because you might be the first person they've seen today, and partly because early risers are somewhat of a secret sub-society within the city.

Combine the "small town" thing with the "early morning" thing and you've got trouble, though. In a small town in Maine at six in the morning I encountered a guy who thought it was incredibly rude that I wouldn't stop and discuss (a) the weather and (b) where I was from as I walked past his house. Sorry dude, there's four million people in my home town, can't chat with all of 'em.

I did this for the first time a few months ago and it was incredible. It made me more confident and especially during conversations where I'm able to hold someones gaze while talking. It's also quite powerful when you do this with a member of the opposite sex with a sly smile on your face. These days whenever I'm out I'll be scanning hungrily for anyone to make eye contact with me. I've had stare down battles with people on the tube, a game of first one to look away loses. Battles can last between 5-10 seconds.

I didn't feel comfortable looking somebody in the eyes while talking them until I was 22 or 23 and had just re-read How To Win Friends & Influence People for the 3rd or 4th time.

One of the best articles I've read in a long time... well done. NYTimes for the win.

How is this not off topic?

I guess, that's because it's interesting.

You're new here and you've asked what seems to you a reasonable question. You've been down-voted because you haven't done your homework.

From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html :

    On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
              interesting. That includes more than
              hacking and startups. If you had to
              reduce it to a sentence, the answer
              might be: anything that gratifies one's
              intellectual curiosity.

I've re-up-voted you because I don't think your question deserves to be at -4, even though it doesn't really add value to the site.

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