The silence behind web calls

I miss the face to face interaction, I really do.

There is something that for me, as a Gemini that loves to interact, really makes me uncomfortable. The void in web calls.

It happens on certain occasions, when someone is presenting a certain content, or when someone asks for others opinion. It doesn’t matter the topic (easy or hard), when someone asks “What do you think?” and there is that silence in the air, I feel that it is harder to interpret people’s feelings.

Our body and facial expressions say so much more than words.

In that few seconds of a void, maybe someone put their hands on the head. Or closed their eyes for a moment “not to see” what just happened. Or gave that deep sigh of disapproval. Or presented a huge smile of approval. Or laughed of relieve.

Some may say that one solution is to turn on the camera on all occasions. On the other hand, I think it is exhausting to be ready for video calls all the time. There is even a new slang term for it: Zoom fatigue. National Geographich made an interesting coverage about it, showing how video calls are taxing the brain.

Though I am really enjoying remote work for many reasons (I will write a post just for it later on), this week I have faced this situation which made me realize how hard it is to understand how others are truly feeling, when you can not truly see them.

Originally published at https://beatrizrcunha.wixsite.com on July 8, 2020.