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> What is up that you need someone else to have a camera pointing to their face that you can't have with their voices?

Smiles, frowns, nods, glazed looks, puzzled looks, surprised looks, I-want-to-say-something-but-I-can't-get-a-word-in looks, zoning out, impatience, et cetera, et cetera. There's really a lot people communicate with their faces, both consciously and unconsciously.

People also focus their attention.

If I'm at an in-person meeting of 5-8 people, and 3 of them get into a longer discussion about things that are irrelevant to me, and for understanding which I don't have the background, I can zone out and nobody cares, because nobody is looking at me. Everyone is looking at the people talking.

On a video call, my zoned-out face will make the trio feel uneasy; instead of discussing their topic quickly, they'll stumble and try to "talk to the audience", or god forbid, drag everyone else into the discussion. So with forced camera on, I have to look focused while squinting at the other screen, discretely playing 2048 and pinching myself to not yawn visibly, while with camera off, I could get off my chair, stretch a little, or do something actually useful for the company.

I'll be happier with having always-on camera on long videocalls when videocalls start working like real-life meetings: not everyone is looking at everyone else all the time, and everyone can tell who's looking at them in any given moment. The way things are today, I find this constant surveillance to be mentally tormenting, and only activate my camera on the basis of courtesy: 1:1 meetings, some team meetings, meetings with an important higher-up who also has their camera on, etc.

I use people zoning out as a sign that the topic is not a good fit for this meeting, and should be discussed outside of it with a smaller group. That seems to work well to keep meetings quick and on point.

This is fair, but I'm skeptical that these things are actually taken into account in the vast majority of video meetings. Whereas you're right, they're important face-to-face.

Is this because you observe yourself on screen?

I feel very uneasy looking at myself when talking, so I've figured out how to remove my tile and it's suddenly like a normal conversation.

There are way less social codes you have to follow when wfh and people tend to not bother as much with enforcing them.

I constantly think about how I'm coming across, whether my hand gestures are visible in frame, if I look like I'm frowning too much, if I'm nodding big enough to be seen, if I seem like I'm not paying attention when I look away from the screen, etc etc

But is that because you have the visual feedback of yourself? As I say, I can relate and that's why I disable my own tile.

I'm being a bit encroaching here, but I'm guessing you'd have to do as much and probably more self regulation in in-person meetings. Nobody cares where your hands are, probably no one even looks at them because you're one of many tiles. Where you're looking is not interesting because nobody knows where your camera sits related to your face. I constantly look out the window while talking. Genuinely, I've had to force eye contact on bad days in in-person meetings and everyone knew, it felt as pathetic as looking at my own face and checking if my gesturing and face ist appropriate

No, to be clear, I would have more anxiety because I wouldn't know how I'm coming across. I guess my question is, if I'm one of many tiles and no one cares where I'm looking, what's the point of having the camera on?

In small to medium sized groups, body and facial language helps to understand how a person feels about something. Most people like to imagine everything is completely rational but most things at work have a human component. If I feel like someone's unhappy with the work they're allocated I will ask them about it. It's like watching a movie without the image.

This feature is currently not supported my microsoft teams. And I guess a lot of corporations use teams for meetings.

This is good advice. I usually move my video tile to a lower corner where it is easy to ignore.

In my context there is the unspoken agreement that we turn cameras on when a meeting starts and after greeting and checking the agenda everyone is free to turn their camera off.

> I feel surveilled and every movement I do in front of it is calculated by my unconscious mind

What do you do in in-person meetings? Or supermarket visits etc.? Everything you do is way more visible in those, and I've never heard anyone complain about being surveilled in person.

Do you feel the same way in front of a camera pointing to your face as you do on a normal day-to-day interaction with non-verbal cues, room to use body language to express yourself, etc.?

It's not about the visibility, it's the psychological impact it has, having a camera pointed directly at my face 100% of the time is very different than sitting in a room, reading others' faces, attention (where are they focusing their gaze? When are they drifting off? When are they tapping their fingers on the table?).

I don't know why I hear this argument so many times, a camera on my face is a very different experience than sharing a room with others, I don't see the parallel.

Well, I don't understand, as the parallel seems obvious; you're meeting with a group of people and you can see them and they can see you. If anything I feel freer with the camera, as others' visibility of me is much more limited than in person. I like cameras in meetings for exactly what you say, reading others' faces, attention, body language, non-verbal cues, etc. Without being able to see people I find it much harder to understand them, and to be sure they're understanding me.

When I'm meeting in person I can move around, I can look at whoever is the center of attention at the moment without having to care if someone is watching me, it's much more easy to tell if you are being watched or not and when to relax or not.

The parallel does not work, I don't think it's that hard to realise that a camera pointing at your face, showing how you look at any given moment to anyone that looks at you and you can't tell if they are looking at you or not is equivalent to an in-person setting where you are aware of your surroundings much more naturally.

I really don't know how to be more explicit than this about the major differences between in-person to a virtual meeting with cameras...

I guess I don't have that strong need to know exactly when someone is looking at me. If I'm with other people I behave as if they can see me, because they probably can, and if appropriate I relax. I don't think I could reliably keep track of who was looking at me in an in-person meeting with more than three people anyway. Keeping track of that and changing behaviour when people look at me or look away seems like it would be exhausting.

Do you feel this during in person meetings? Where you are constantly surveilled and every movement you make watched?

You feel this way shopping in the grocery store? Where the cashier is constantly looking at you when speaking? Is your productivity lower because the other people in the store can see you?

The problem with virtual meetings is you can't tell what someone is looking at. If you have 9 people looking straight ahead, it looks like they are all looking at you.

This may not be an issue for you, but it makes some people uncomfortable. Add anxiety disorder and it's a fucking nightmare. I have no issue if I can see where people are looking.

I have never had anxiety in my life and being on camera every day for hours has gotten me most of the way there.

I'm tired of replying to this kind of comment, this would be my 4th time but I prefer to leave you the link to the other ones:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986737

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28987453

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28986771

Coudlnt say it better

do you just melt when in the office?

No, I like offices, I'm a very outspoken and outgoing person, I enjoy social interactions. I don't like a camera pointing at my face.

It's not that difficult to see that this is a very different experience than sharing an office. And I'm tired of repeating this.

I’m sure this doesn’t apply to you at all, but cynically, I just feel that when I hear these weird to me reasons that I can’t understand, I just assume the person hasn’t showered in a week.

I had female coworker confide to me that she didn’t like turning her camera on because it takes 40 minutes to apply her makeup every day. So she only does it for important meetings, but otherwise leaves the camera off.

> I just feel that when I hear these weird to me reasons that I can’t understand, I just assume the person hasn’t showered in a week.

So... if you don't understand someone else's reasons for doing something, you assume they aren't being honest with you?

> So... if you don't understand someone else's reasons for doing something, you assume they aren't being honest with you?

I feel you are getting somewhere with this train of thought, so far I've replied a few people on this thread that seems to think this way and project this need of having a camera on because they don't understand how that can negatively affect others and assume people are being dishonest.

Having a disability that isn't visible, I deal with this problem all the time.

The underlying issue is thinking of other's behavior as if it it was own behavior and then determine the other person's motivates from that assumption.

If you don't understand someone else, you'll assume their reasons for a specific thing are the same as if you were doing that thing.

Example: I take more days off than I have PTO for.

Conclusion: I'm claiming to have a disability to get to have more vacation days.

Reality: I've gone six months without any kind of vacation and many of my weekends spent barely recovering from work. My disability has taken so much from me that I find it hard to justify staying alive.

When I get back to work, people ask how my vacation was.

> I’m sure this doesn’t apply to you at all, but cynically, I just feel that when I hear these weird to me reasons that I can’t understand, I just assume the person hasn’t showered in a week.

If you are working remotely, does it matter? Does it matter if someone hasn't showered in a week and doesn't want to show that on camera but is still a productive worker?

I really don't get this nosiness about people's lives when you aren't sharing a common physical space.

I enjoy sometimes being able to get out of bed a bit later, not having time to do a full morning ritual before work if I can get some 30-45 min more out of my sleep, why should I have to care about all of that to show my face to colleagues on camera? Why should you judge someone that doesn't want their camera on?

>I just assume the person hasn’t showered in a week

Is it any of your business?

Ever think that its people like you that drive people to not want to turn on their cameras? The fear of constantly being watched and judged? If someone is working remotely the way they look or if they have not showered is completely irrelevant. Only questions that matter are is the work getting done and is the person answering questions competently. Nothing else should matter, least of all if you can watch them on cam.

If other participants having a tiny 200px image of you (among 6 other people) in the corner of their screen is extremely fatiguing to you, how does it work when you go to the office ? Do you get seizures after 15min of in-person meeting ? Panic attacks ? How did you deal with life 5 years ago ?

Going from mostly physical office to mostly work-from-home on zoom is already a massive change that gives a lot of comfort to people. I think refusing literally ANY kind of human interaction apart from sound and written text is waaaay too anti-social.

Interaction is good, interaction is fine, this is where good ideas come from. Don't become a virtual entity. Humans are real.

I've never had a conference with images that small. They are always more than adequate to see what someone's doing.

The big difference to presence meetings is that you send your picture into the void and don't get any social cues back, or very different ones.

You're arguing against a bit of a strawman there.

In-person meetings are completely different.

Video conferences are as if everybody were potentially constantly staring at you, but you couldn't tell if or when this was the case, and despite everybody looking at you, you couldn't even make eye-contact with anybody, share a smile etc.

If anything, video conferences are dehumanising.

No, I like offices, I'm a very outspoken and outgoing person, I enjoy social interactions. I don't like a camera pointing at my face. It's not that difficult to see that this is a very different experience than sharing an office. And I'm tired of repeating this.

This is the 3rd time I'm replying that I feel that the experience of a camera is very different than real life interactions and I like real life interactions, I'm getting really exhausted of this non-sequitur being repeated...