Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fxtentacle | Hacker News Reader

No.

My experience with video conferencing is that it's mostly draining people's attention away, while being completely unnecessary. We switched from seeing each other's distorted, pixelated, and badly lit faces in a video conference back to plain old phone calls. Nobody missed the video, so problem solved.

In my opinion, the writing was on the wall when mainstream media started having makeup tutorials for video conferencing: https://www.vogue.com/article/how-to-apply-makeup-for-zoom-v...

or when people started having legal battles about video avatars: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/24/21591488/projekt-melody-...

But also, the problem is by no means new. Here's a great quote from 1996:

"And the videophonic stress was even worse if you were at all vain. I.e. if you worried at all about how you looked. As in to other people. Which all kidding aside who doesn’t." - David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

Read his funny take on the rise and fall of video conferencing, and you'll be cured from the hype :)

I don't understand why people think of video conferencing as "video streaming yourself"? We almost always keep our cameras off during the meetings, but still video conference allows us to share the screen easily, which is immensely helpful (for IT people at least). Over a phone you can't copy&paste, you can't share screens, you can't draw on the screen, it's way more limiting

If I'm not seeing you I feel a disconnect. I have some colleagues that insist on keeping their camera off, indeed it has a "focus on business effect". I also have groups of people that all have their camera's on, with WFH and lock down we see each others kids and each other emotions, it creates a much more personal bond which I highly appreciate. With the camera-on now being the default I even have a much better and relaxed relationship with my colleagues in the US (I'm in the Netherlands) I guess it's what you want to get out of your digital forms of contact.

Seconding this. So many people are adamant on video being a necessity or suitable substitute for in-person meetings, specifically the aspect of visually seeing people.

Yet, I find most of the things people visually do in person to be fluff that can be done without. Meanwhile, video-conferencing either requires an expensive setup (not everyone here works in the US, let alone FAANG) to really start emulating "in-person", or it forces somebody to self-police themselves to a much larger degree sitting in front of a webcam with no video or audio privacy (I guess this at least emulates the open office disaster). And it still misses the forest for the trees. Additionally, trying to shoehorn fun into work rarely works.

(Also, as far as I know, there is no way to stop looking at your own face in Teams besides turning off the cam. Looking at a mirror 24/7 isn't even close to reality).

This is assuming that everyone is vain, isn't it.

DFW passed away 12 years ago, quite a lot has changed since then, let alone people the pandemic social isolation due to Covid19.

If anything, I would say people (i.e. not everyone, just the major part of them) got more vain in the past 12 years...

For those of you who like me who don't immediately get the reference, DFW probably refers to the novelist David Foster Wallace - at least the 12 years reference fits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFW

He is mentioned by the OP

Well, it's not just a matter of vanity, showing up on a board meeting in your pajamas is still not a thing unfortunately. It's especially harsh on women because of all ridiculous social expectations. Even when others don't really care we're mentally condition to presume that world is expecting us to look in a certain way and that creates a lot of stress - plus it's a total waste of time if you work from home.

>seeing each other's distorted, pixelated, and badly lit faces

Isn't it the core of the problem?

Most faces of my colleagues are also not particularly pretty under the TL lighting of our office. My own face even seems to benefit quite poorly from proper lighting. Yet, somehow, I'm not really expecting #insta quality selfy images but (call me crazy) I like how real it is and the fact that I can read their emotions.

Sure, I check if I'm not showing overly dominant nostrils due to camera angles or have food anywhere on my face but other than that, I's just how I look.

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