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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

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't, then even if they can see them, the sarcasm isn't more/less because it's a video call.

Video calls to me are just another version of "Hey look at me!!!! I'm special"

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I have absolutely no use for videoconferencing professionally (and I work remotely, and have for nearly 20 years), but in the era of Corona I find we're doing Facetime or Zoom with friends and family for social reasons, and enjoying it for the most part.

I still find a video call more draining than physical interaction, but in the absence of the latter I'll take this in order to visit with our friends. We have a standing Friday happy hour with 2 other couples we used to see "in real life" all the time, and we look forward to it. My cycling group has taken to setting up "training Zooms" we can join so we can all suffer together on our indoor trainers, and that's nice, too.

What's interesting to me is that, now that video calling is becoming more mainstream, I wonder how much of it will stay after Corona, and how that will affect long-distance friendships.

In part due to the latency noted elsewhere in the comments, I find myself interrupting people more when I'm remote. With video on, the visual cue of someone getting ready to start talking makes that easier to avoid.

Secondarily, I have a much better time assessing whether other attendees are following a conversation. If I'm feeling lost, but everyone else looks like they're following along, maybe it's just me — and I'll sit tight and try to catch up. If others look bewildered, I'll start asking questions.

> With video on, the visual cue of someone getting ready to start talking makes that easier to avoid.

You have the possibility of using an actual raised hand to signal that you want to interrupt a discussion that has gone astray. But that only works in settings where all participants are visible even when silent.

Maybe someone needs to add a feature to their video calling solution where you can press a button to "raise your hand".

Maybe this is sarcasm, buy Zoom has that exact feature.

I used that feature to "raise my hand" in my first ever Zoom meeting. The host didn't realize it until I raised my actual hand on video.

meet.jit.si has that feature. It seems really superior to Zoom (no account needed, links in natural language, great UI, good sound/video quality), I don't know why more people don't use it.

Cisco meeting software has this and its almost never used.

It can help with loneliness when you're living alone, isolating alone, and are used to having people around you for 8 hours a day in an office.

This isn't true for everyone, but certainly is for many.

For me, body language. I hate voice calls because I'm lost without it.

I agree 100%, voice is fine for communication. The video should only be deployed for presentations, graphs, and other visual media that is necessary to get your point across. Facetime is usless unless it's with the parentals every couple of months.

At this point I'm one of the few people still putting up the video feed, and I'm feeling pretty depressed. There was at least some interaction with that dumb feed of peoples heads, now I feel alone and like I'm talking to a wall. You'd be surprised how much you rely on feedback and validation from body language alone when it's abruptly been eliminated from your life.

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.

It seems like a "compromise" that is entirely in favor of the visual people though.

Email is a compromise to the readers. It works out more or less. There is no good answer but if you understand it exists you can work with it. Sometimes that means you have to work hard in a medium you don't like, other times you can suggest yours is better and win.

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