
Video chats short-circuit a brain function essential for trust? - fraqed
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/zoom-trust-business-pandemic-1.5628638?cmp=rss
======
havelhovel
Before this article influences more discussion, I want to point out that it
provides no research relevant to the claim that "video chats short circuit a
brain function essential for trust."

The only research cited show that face-to-face contact is more effective at
soliciting donations than email [1], that non-verbal cues are important for
feeling trust [2], something about sunglasses affecting theory of mind, and
(ironically) that credibility assessments are stronger _without_ visual cues
[3]. The only sentence that actually applies to video chat is Frances
Westley's complaint that "the quality...and satisfaction of the
interaction...is diminished."

1:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210311630292X)

2:
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761244879...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612448793)

3:
[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/](https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2013/164546/)

~~~
the-pigeon
Yeah...there might be something to this idea but this article doesn't back
it's claims with any evidence.

~~~
seph-reed
Things like this always give me a feeling a foul play, but obviously that's
just a feeling without proof.

I dearly hope that someday we'll be able to look back and have a realistic
view of just how much foul play exists right now. What if someone paid for
this narrative without any supporting evidence? What if it was just the
product of an idealess reporting team? Who knows... but some day I would love
to.

------
tzs
> In-person encounters are crucial for establishing trust and building
> successful teams, according to research

Sources of many counterexamples: EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer
Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Rift.

In all of these games numerous groups of people who have never interacted with
each other in person have formed long term successful trusting teams.

EverQuest in particular in its first several years required a lot of teamwork
to reach the highest level content, with each team member having to put in
effort equivalent to a full time job. EverQuest had a huge "death penalty"
compared to pretty much every MMORPG since, with a death sometimes wiping out
days or even weeks of advancement and preparation. It was designed so that you
could do very little solo or even in small groups at the high end so you had
to rely upon and trust your teammates.

Later MMORPGs toned it down a bit compared to EverQuest [1], but they still
all had things that greatly benefited from successful trusting teams, and
those teams formed in all of them.

[1] As did EverQuest itself. In fact, EQ today is actually a quite fun and
interesting game to play solo. On a free play account you can reasonably get a
character up to around level 50 solo, which was the limit in original EQ, and
that solo character will be able to do a large fraction of what had been the
high end content back in the day. On a paid account, which opens up access to
more abilities, you can easily solo into at least the 80s or maybe 90s (115 is
the current max level).

~~~
z3t4
Every time i read about how hard it is to manage remote teams i think they
have never played a mmo or been in a game clan.

~~~
tzs
Hmmm...I wonder if "manage remote teams" might be the key?

At work you'll have your team of engineers, with managers who aren't actually
working on the engineering problems themselves. Heck, they might not even be
engineers. They are dealing with representing the engineering team as a whole
in interactions with other engineering teams, or with non-engineering teams
and higher level managers.

In every MMORPG I've played, the "managers" were players out there on the
front lines with the rest of the group. You didn't have someone whose role was
to just direct and coordinate what the rest of the guild did, and represent
the guild to outside interests. No, your "manager" was right out swinging a
weapon or casting spells with the rest of the guild on a raid.

Maybe that's the difference? In a game, your "manager" on a team is just
another one of the team who does all the normal things expected for the class
of character they are playing and just happens to also be coordinating things.
At work, manager is a distinct role very different from the roles of the
people they are managing. Perhaps that changes the nature of team sufficiently
to make trust harder to build?

~~~
ZitchDog
I agree in theory. Having managers who are also contributing can create an
awesome level of trust on a team. In practice, the problem is the "maker's
schedule" in software doesn't accommodate time for the constant interruptions
of coordination. Swinging an axe is one thing, but software requires large
amounts of focused time which is discongruous with management needs.

------
kevincox
I don't think this is a surprise for many people who have been working with
people in different offices for a while. I don't have any hard evidence but
from my experience you can work with people in other offices for months, often
getting the feeling that formality and lack of trust was getting in the way.

But then I burn a ton of fossil fuels to fly over and spend a couple of days
with them in person and the discussion changes dramatically. It feels so silly
that you need to damage the environment and spend so much money for something
that logically seems the same. I am looking at someone's face and talking. But
it works, it is so unreasonably effective that from time to time I need to fly
just to see a colleague in person.

~~~
r_c_a_d
My experience is that after you have met someone once (for more than a few
minutes) then video calls work a lot better than with people you have never
met.

I guess you develop some degree of trust (and a stronger mental model) during
a meeting that persists afterwards.

~~~
LyndsySimon
My own feelings echo this.

I've been working remotely for several years. I changed jobs in March, right
at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic really impacting daily life. As a
result I've never met any of my colleagues in person. I often feel like I
don't have a good feeling for how they feel about a given topic and spend far
too much time and energy trying to manage those relationships.

I'm looking forward to being able to travel again so I can meet at least some
of them. In the past, I've participated in "team building" events where the
entire (small) engineering group rents out a beach house somewhere for a week.
That time is spent split approximately evenly between regular work,
brainstorming/planning for the future, and social engagement. I didn't see the
value of it before experiencing it, but now I'm 100% in favor of it.

If I ever get to the point where I'm leading an engineering group at a funded
startup, semi-annual engineering retreats will definitely be a priority for
me. They don't have to be "rent a beach house for two weeks in the Outer
Banks", either. I live in rural Arkansas, and there are large cabins on the
Buffalo River and White River that go for ~$200 / night or less during the
offseason and can comfortably sleep 35 people.

~~~
rabidrat
35 rooms for $200/night? That's incredible.

~~~
LyndsySimon
"Sleeps 35", not "35 rooms" \- I'm talking about a "lodge", where there are
usually multiple bedrooms with multiple beds per room. It's not a hotel
situation but it's roughly analogous to the OBX beach houses that I've
experienced in the past in that context.

Also, granted, I live in this area and have personal contacts I can reach out
to. The listed prices are going to be much higher than that - but last year I
reached out to the owners of a couple of these places personally to see about
booking something in the offseason, and that was the lowest price I got.

For someone not local and able to negotiate face-to-face, I'd say $500-$700 /
night is about what I'd expect. Even so... when you consider the cost of
travel and the cost of more "traditional" locations, the difference is pretty
much insignificant.

------
leonardteo
It's funny that the original title for this article on CBC was actually "Zoom
chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust: Don Pittis | CBC
News" and the article only mentioned Zoom. :) They changed the title and
edited I guess after people pointed out that the research itself was not Zoom
specific. I'm amazed how Zoom has become synonomous with "video conferencing"
when there are so many other viable solutions available.

~~~
dawg-
I could see Zoom ending up like Kleenex or Jet Ski or Crock-Pot or Chapstick,
where the brand name becomes the word for the thing itself.

Edit because I googled it for more examples and couldn't help myself:
Tupperware, Band-Aids, Post-It, Slip n Slide, Xerox, Velcro, Weed Eater,
Scotch Tape, Q-Tips, Rollerblades, Jacuzzi, Bubble Wrap.....

~~~
dmd
A few days ago this gem appeared in my inbox: "Hey folks, we had trouble
setting up the Cisco zoom this meeting so we're switching to a Google zoom,
here's the link"

~~~
Cthulhu_
Have they tried googling the issue via Bing?

------
KallDrexx
My bet is a big part of the issue is webcams not being embedded in the
screens. It's literally impossible to have eye contact because either you are
looking at the webcam and not seeing other people, or you are looking at your
screen. Many animals are very good at recognizing direct vs indirect eye
contact and so I would assume the same is true for humans too.

~~~
polytely
I think some(?) smartphones adjust your eyes via post processing to create the
illusion of eye-contact when taking selfies, I wonder if this is fast enough
to also do it with built-in webcams in laptops.

~~~
wintermutestwin
Yes - Apple put this in to newer ARKit phones. They demoed it for Facetime
during beta, but I haven't seen more on it since. Not sure if it will work
with other apps like zoom.

------
czbond
Thoughts on personalizing multi-group interactions.

A few years back, I worked at a big4 consulting firm. I would often fly into
some 'what city is it today?' to meet with a company's team and often up to
CxO in F500. Usually brought in because first few efforts internally failed
hard. You can imagine meetings with engineering teams, with me starting out at
'below trust' bc it was top down. This means that even though I am CompSci by
nature, our success hinged on personal interactions.

Here is what I highly suggest, and has worked wonders for me.

\- Learn to talk. Get on calls early, do research on the attendants to try to
find some common interests quickly. Think like a salesperson, trying to close
the 'people' by being human, friendly. Edit: A good add on to this, is to find
their 'pivot person' \- a person on the call the team trusts (often a few
people down the 'food chain').

\- Make self-deprecating fun of yourself. I try to poke fun at myself very
quickly to show humbling comedy - and I do it loudly. People like when you
make them laugh. By making them laugh at me, no one's feelings are hurt. It
gives their team a feeling of superiority, so you must be able to back it up
with real firepower later to control.

\- Try to take 'their team' side as often as possible. Assume every decision
they've made is intelligent, and in good faith. You'd ask for the same.

\- See how you can foster individual relationships. For their lead developer,
"Hey I saw this about your stack/what we're doing/etc - and thought of you".

\- Only 'do other things' on your computer during that meeting immediately
related, and very short in duration.

\- Don't argue with 'that argumentative, defensive engineer' around the other
groups. "That's a really great point - can I call you after this?"

Hope it helps.

~~~
justwalt
These tips all seem rational and effective. Thanks for posting!

------
tomrod
Two thoughts:

1\. In my experience, I worked with a group that was adversarial until we
began to use video conferencing and could see each other. The relationship
became better after that (it was an internal validation group that was in
another location). We could see each other and no quality of work was
impacted. We ceased to be each other's boogeyman.

2\. Many folks experienced video conferencing the first time at the start of
the coronavirus pandemic, which is not representative of normal times.

I reckon that this singular view isn't capturing a lot of things.

~~~
12bits
Regarding point 2

“Canadian research on "computer-mediated communication," begun long before the
current lockdown, shows video chat is an inadequate substitute for real-life
interaction. The real thing, dependant on non-verbal cues, is extraordinarily
more effective in creating rapport and getting ideas across.”

~~~
havelhovel
The article is deliberately vague on actual research, and it appears that
“computer-mediated communication“ may only be referring to Roghanizad‘s 2017
paper on email communication.

------
capnahab
I am a surgeon, hospitals are seizing the online video call as a new miracle
cost saver. Whilst some consultations are OK for routine encounters eg
organising tests, when it comes to discussing surgery most patients value
seeing the surgeon.

~~~
dawg-
My dad is a Physical Therapist, and believe it or not they are pushing for PTs
to do telehealth. It kind of sounds like a pipe dream to me seeing as how
hands-on the profession is. I mean a big part of the job is that you literally
have to touch people and move their joints around for them.

~~~
Enginerrrd
I personally believe Physical Therapy is a field ripe for innovation, but I
don't think that's quite it.

------
jacknews
There's little doubt that face-to-face communication is more 'human' than
video chat, and better for building rapport and intimacy.

But where is the evidence that video-only (or audio, or text) is bad for the
workplace? It could actually be a 'leveler', and in fact better, if it reduces
cliques, collusion, physical intimidation, etc, and therefore fosters more
open and widespread collaboration.

------
wickerman
I feel like any other tool, it largely depends on the context in which it's
being used. I think that video chats are phenomenal in certain workplaces, or
for certain people, and terrible in others. I've been in situations where half
the team was offshore and it took a long time to build rapport because it's a
lot more difficult to be casual while on calls - you want to get to the point
while you're on a meeting, so you never get to chit chat with them the same
way you would chit chat with the coworker you have right beside you.

But on the other side, I've also worked with people on the autism spectrum and
noticed that interactions became a lot easier through video conference than in
person. On my side at least, I tend to get thrown off a lot by out of place
mannerisms so it was easier for me to communicate with them.

And as some other people have pointed out, there might be working environments
where home working actually helps to avoid/reduce tension/intimidation/toxic
relationships etc.

Edit: also worth mentioning that my husband and I met and fell in love after
skyping for many years (we lived in different continents) and I'm certainly
not the only one...

------
wcoenen
Where is the research paper that found this "brain function short circuit"?
The CBC article doesn't shed much light on the claim made in the title, and
seems to link to a few different older papers.

~~~
dawg-
Any time brains are compared to electronics, be skeptical.

------
tchock23
I wonder how much of this is 2D/3D and a feeling of “presence.” Anecdotally,
I’ve been playing various games in VR with friends & family and it just feels
so much more like I’m there. I’d be interested to see research on building
trust in virtual 3D environments vs. 2D video chat.

Also, the email vs. in-person donation research didn’t make sense to me. Of
course someone that asks you for a donation in-person will get a higher
response. However, the reason would be social pressures, reciprocity and/or
conformity rather than anything inherent to physical presence.

~~~
LyndsySimon
My instinct is that stereoscopic vision is a big part of facial awareness.
Simply moving it to 3D with virtual avatars wouldn't be enough, though - I
think it's probably more about consciously imperceptible social cues.

If those cues could be identified, maybe you could point a high-res camera
pointed at the person to capture them and then reproduce them on their VR
avatar. I doubt the science is there, though.

------
vorpalhex
I suspect a lot of it is quality and UI/UX woes.

In a default video app you struggle to see everyone, only one speaker can be
heard clearly and usually there's audio/video sync issues. Add a sprinkle of
bad hardware and suddenly it's more like talking to a robot over dialup than
any semblance of a conversation.

On the other hand, have the participants use good hardware, high quality
connections and fix the audio issues and the problems greatly get reduced.

Anecdotally, comparing my work meetings to my video-chat social calls seems to
reinforce this. Work folks typically use just their laptop and have
questionable wireless, and we use Google Meet which seems to get worse with
every update especially on the audio front. Meanwhile the social group is
primarily streamers with high end cameras and microphones and better
networking, which when combined with Discords significantly improved audio
muxing dramatically improves call quality and reduces "Zoom fatigue".

------
tompagenet2
I do wonder whether video calls have become the next reading, television or
video games - this horror that will destroy people's brains. It all feels
rather reactionary. Surely different forms of communication work for different
people in different circumstances. We can't make these wide pronouncements.

------
JoeAltmaier
I've noticed that it takes a different effort to communicate digitally than
in-person. I can talk to a person in a car as I drive, no problem. But talk
(even hands-free) over a phone and it takes a lot more attention. As accident
statistics point out.

Why is this? I think we're wired to interact in-person. When we try to talk to
a person we can't sense directly, we have to build a brain model of them. That
takes quite a bit more effort.

As an experiment I tried putting my hand up to block my passenger from view as
I drove. Immediately I could tell I was paying less attention to the road,
vividly. Just having them out of view, even peripherally, made for a different
experience.

~~~
chadlavi
this is slightly different from the problem of not seeing someone, but the
fact that video chat software demands a walkie-talkie style "you talk, then I
talk, then you talk" style of conversation is very difficult. Normal human
conversation includes a lot of natural (and sometimes productive) cross-talk.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed! I was part of a product team that build Sococo Teamspace, including a
video chat that allowed interruption. Everybody could talk at once, and still
hear everyone else. It made an amazing difference.

------
caseysoftware
At an internal event back in February (in the before times), we had a
videographer come through asking questions. She asked me "What did you learn
this week?"

My response: "I learned how tall everyone is! On Zoom, everyone is the same
height!"

Unfortunately, it didn't make the highlight video. :)

But the serious side of it is that if 100% of our interactions are from the
chest up, we lose a ton of body language context and physical expressions.
With everyone muted, you miss out on verbal cues too. We're missing
layers/nuance of communication but it's hard to tell if those are 1%, 25%,
50%, or 95% of the interaction.

------
logie17
I think there is a lot more that video apps can do to take the edge off or to
make people feel more comfortable in meetings. Right now I think most tools
are very rudimentary.

Full disclosure, I work for [https://team.video](https://team.video) and we're
trying to make meetings more enjoyable. Just simple things like having built
in agendas, games, and non-verbal feedback I think can go a long way to making
a remote meeting way less painful and help build trust among your colleagues.

------
oblib
I think there is something to this. I can't quite make the leap to "video
chats short circuit a brain function essential for trust." but I do think we
miss out on a lot, or maybe some tend to be dismissive.

I think it may be easier to be dismissive in a video chat, but I'd suspect
those who are would tend to be so anyway, just behind your back, not face to
face in the meeting.

------
Grustaf
This seems like the opposite of “short-circuiting”.

------
motohagiography
Couldn't help but wonder whether stereoscopic cameras might affect this
somehow, and it would be interesting to hear anecdotes of whether that makes a
difference.

Orthogonaly, I worked in an environment some years ago that had zoom sessions
in %90 of all meetings, and the trust level between teams on zoom was low.
There were company culture reasons for it, as arguably internecine conflict is
necessarily a leadership gap, but the zoom medium itself advantaged
misrepresentation in a way that email, slack and even conference calls did
not. The difference between video and audio calls was that with just audio,
someone cannot use their counterparty's isolation to lie because they can't be
sure there is nobody else there. On ephemeral video, someone in an empty room
is already atomized, and the power dynamic changes. I remember reading a bunch
of critical theory about art from the 80's and 90's about the effect of
framing, the gaze of the camera, the relationship between subjects and
observers, and how people relate to images.

When you are on camera and seeing yourself reflected in a screen without a lot
of fidelity, it creates a feeling of uncannyness, and you are made self-
conscious, which has consequences to the power dynamic of the conversation. It
can set up perfect storm conditions for people whose personalities are given
to reflexive or defensive lies.

We behave differently when they are being observed or recorded. I used to
always use the camera, but since the lockdown, I have been dialing in to
conferences because the uncertainty of the audio connection is leveling. For
personal acquaintences, I use the camera, but if there is a power difference,
I use audio.

The uncanny effect of video causing self consciousness that brings out
defensive traits, which cause mistrust in relationships could just be an
"uncanny valley," effect, hence my initial question of whether stereoscopic
cameras might change the effect, or maybe exacerbate it. It's also possible
that offsetting your camera angle so that you both are being seen to view the
same thing from different angles, as though you are discussing some third
party object, might improve comfort levels instead of the dead-on positioning
of laptop cameras. If I stared at my dog the way people look into their
cameras, he'd eventually attack me or someone else, it's possible the camera
positioning we use for video conferencing creates the same kind of
confrontational/defensive frame.

A portrait photographer could have some insight into this I'm sure.

------
Animats
Even one-way video worked for Walter Cronkite and Ronald Reagan. (Trust-
inspiring TV personalities since then have been sparse, but that's not due to
a problem with the video system.)

------
xwdv
I wonder what the effect might be if you crop off a 40% of a person's face
vertically, such that you are only seeing one eye and a bit more than half
their nose and mouth.

------
okasaki
Worthless clickbait, article and research.

