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Comment by seryoiupfurds | Hacker News Reader

Video calls are exhausting because without eye contact you can never tell who's looking at you at any given moment.

You have to maintain perfect composure because there's a camera pointed right at your face transmitting your minutest reactions to the rest of the group.

It's especially difficult when you're in a meeting that just won't end, or somebody keeps going back to a tiresome subject that's already been beaten to death. You can't even allow yourself a look down or a raised eyebrow without rudely signaling your boredom to everyone else on the call.

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Oh boy do I have good news for you - nobody is looking at you if you're not currently talking, and nobody is going to notice or care if you look down or have the "minutest reaction".

People are primarily looking at the speaker, secondarily at themselves, third is probably checking slack/email/whatever and only in a deep 4th or 5th place is anyone paying any attention to the expression on other people's faces.

Realizing that nobody is paying that much attention and doesn't care hopefully can make the calls less stressful and exhausting for you.

I think it's different order:

1. Primarily at oneself 2. Anything else on the computer 3. Speaker

Exactly, whenever I'm on a video meeting I'm just flinging myself around on my chair. I literally can't hold myself still. But it's even easier for me than an in person meeting since I get automatic captions, which make it so easy to keep track of the conversation.

I mute my voice when I don't want to talk, I should mute my picture too... wait isn't that what text chatroom conversations are?

Move your camera. I have mine above and to the right, so it is always on an oblique angle to my face. For me it relieves the tension of the close-up on your face as well as relieving the worry about looking at the speaker as the camera position wouldn't translate that anyways.

> You can't even allow yourself a look down or a raised eyebrow without rudely signaling your boredom to everyone else on the call.

Oh, one must. It is an important signalling mechanism. How else will people know that the horse they are beating is dead?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41854801

yeah, Eye Contact Correction is a thing now

> You can't even allow yourself a look down or a raised eyebrow without rudely signaling your boredom to everyone else on the call.

You realize that by hiding your boredom from everyone on the call, you are signaling to them that the discussion is interesting and thus you encourage them to continue that discussion.

That’s obviously better than being seen as unprofessional.

Having your camera disabled is considered unprofessional? That's preposterous.

I meant that hiding your boredom from everyone on the call is more professional than revealing you are bored, regardless of whether your camera is on or not.

This depends on company culture, but yes increasingly having your camera disabled is considered unprofessional unless everybody else has camera off as well (or if there are a dozen or more people in the meeting. In that case rules change a bit).

We could argue about whether it should be that way (I'm quite unsure tbh), but I would advise people who care about professionalism to default to on.

Not to mention that your meeting is recorded, so any misstep will be seen during the replay. When I have to go back watch an old meeting for details I cringe at some of my facial expressions.

> You can't even allow yourself a look down or a raised eyebrow without rudely signaling your boredom to everyone else on the call.

How is that any different than an in person meeting?

There is this assumed necessity that a video call is so much better for these meetings. I never enable the camera during meetings. Some is sharing their screen, and we simply discuss it. As a sibling comment points out, nobody looks at the thumbnails of the nonspeaking person. If the presenter is trying to look at the thumbnails of the viewers then they are probably not presenting very well. They are just distractions.

Maybe this is a generational thing, as I also never use FaceTime or whatever other video calling, and I'm a gray beard without the beard. Typically, the only ones I see doing that are those that are younger.

> How is that any different than an in person meeting?

Because you can see yourself. Whereas people IRL conduct themselves in ways that are unoptimized - because they can't see themselves, and since everybody is unoptimized it doesn't really matter.

On a video call, everybody is watching how they look, if you're the one who isn't paying attention then you're the odd one out.

Moreover the geometry of a group video call can be very unphysical if everybody can see everybody else including themselves.

> On a video call, everybody is watching how they look, if you're the one who isn't paying attention then you're the odd one out.

Not my experience in the slightest, and it is rather surprising to hear about others’ experiences from the comments in this thread.

While I don’t disagree that maybe other people do experience calls this way, I would ask: how can everyone simultaneously be watching themselves and also others for others to make a faux pax? It doesn’t seem possible.

I think this is a perfect explanation about why zoom calls are so exhausting. You're having to pay closer attention to more things than you would in person. Attention isn't discrete -- it's dividable, and zoom calls call for that division more so than other scenarios.

You do know you can not display the thumbs of the other guests, right? Why do you even bother if it causes so much consternation on your part?

that's my thoughts as well. who's actually paying attention to the meeting if everyone is so intently watching what all of the other viewers look like instead of the actual presentation.

I mute video and audio unless I have something to say or am being directly addressed.

Great way to summarize. Especially when most meetings are recorded.

We need to boycott cameras being on for meetings. It's a hard no for me. Thankfully hasn't been an issue at any of my jobs.

I try to follow this rule, 3 or less - cameras can be on, 4 or more - turn cameras off, they are a distraction.

This is already a thing among some minoritised groups.

Specifically they feel a need to project a high standard of presentation at work, which is labour-intensive to accomplish, and - quite rightly - they don't want to feel forced to do the same thing to their home environment, or have relative strangers able to see into their homes.

Cameras on certainly shouldn't be mandatory.

Word.

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