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Comment by avz | Hacker News Reader

Phones can easily be oriented either way, unlike most laptop and workstation screens.

Majority of views certainly come from people whose eyes are horizontally next to each other and therefore whose field of view has a greater extent in the horizontal rather than vertical direction.

Admittedly I don't understand where the vertical recording fad comes from. Personally I take pictures and photos that are almost exclusively horizontal except in rare cases like taking a picture of a very tall building.

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I assume that the vertical recording fad primarily comes from:

1. the people doing the recording being too lazy to rotate their phones, and/or the people doing the recording catering to the lowest common denominator of expecting viewers to be too lazy to rotate their phones;

2. so many "influencer" and related videos these days consisting solely of the narrator's face being right in front of the camera, which makes for vertical being the optimal orientation, due to the human face being taller than it is wide (hence the term "portrait orientation"!).

I also hate it, and I also still shoot almost all my photos and videos in horizontal / landscape orientation. I guess that makes me old.

IMO, it's also because vertical orientation is effectively the default on a phone.

Nobody expects to have to turn their video camera sideways to capture in the "correct" orientation... but you must on a phone.

Well, I used to want to do photos/videos in landscape mode. Until I learnt the hard way that orientation detection is not very reliable on (at least the older) iPhones. Had my share of "come on, turn 90 degrees you useless thing" moments, until I gave up completely on wanting to reorient my phone. Since then, it has stayed in portray mode forever.

I can't easily re-orient my phone when I'm laying (my main use circumstance) because then I have to hold it above my stomach awkwardly. Gets worse when it's charging. Can't put it because I'm fat enough for screen to "dive" and become obstructed. Vertical mode has no such issue.

When I'm sitting, holding vertical feels natural, holding horizontal feels awkward again. I can put my hand on a lap and basically rest in vertical. High risk of dropping it in horizontal (and while rotating). Same for walking.

I don't really see how you can do it "easily" apart from purely geometric considerations. I can rotate my PC display more easily cause it's arm-mounted (which is one of the PC life changers).

where the vertical recording fad comes from

Most popular content today is "person focus". People are vertical.

Or… a geyser? Kinda the one thing absolutely known for going up and down.

When you're taking a self-portrait it's easier to hold a phone vertically one-handed, your self image fits the screen better, and your followers are going to view it in portrait mode on TikTok anyway.

When you go yo take a selfie of something other than your face, you just keep the habit.

Watching videos on phones, which "natively" have a vertical orientation, is pretty popular. I expect the majority of videos watched this way.

For social media, vertical pictures and videos is preferred. Instagram adds some borders around your media if it's in landscape mode, same with TikTok, so the idea is to use vertical recording to not have added black bars around your media.

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