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Comment by riversflow | Hacker News Reader

What?!? Video calls are the primary way people my age communicate with their friends, at least in my bubble. Bascially, I’m either using discord if I’m gaming or facetime otherwise. I facetime with multiple people almost daily.

This is virtually everyone I know my age irl in California.

For reference: I’m ~30.

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I've been using discord for a decade or so and think I've only used video once or twice in that whole time. I'm also close to 30 though. I guess it's generational.

Edit: Oops, you added your age! Apparently it's not generational hah!

Honest question: why do you need to see their faces and their surroundings, and conversely show your face and what's around you? Furthermore if you have to aim your camera to you and watch the screen you can't put the phone in your pocket and move around and do things, or pretend to be 100% committed to the call.

An audio call is much more convenient in my experience.

Edit: I could be your father but I did my share of video calls when they were a novelty and I was about your age. They didn't stick. They got interesting again only when we couldn't see our friends during the covid lockdown.

Why not? I’m probably gonna pull my phone out to answer the call, maybe they have something cool to show me?

…Actually the whole “commitment to the call” aspect is probably the biggest reason why we all do this, and why I default to videocalls. It’s OK to answer with your screen off, or pocket your phone mid call, but I can also judge the other’s ability to chat based on the video feed.

Statements like this are a lot more useful is you _say_ what your age(ish) is

Which age is that? The only people I would video chat with in a social context would be my parents. Everything else is work related or meeting in some association. Early thirties.

Also early 30s. I facetime with my friends all the time.

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