BackVideo calls don’t sound exciting? Google has an explanation
Humans are hardwired for the fast-paced exchange of in-person conversationWe're ingrained to avoid talking at the same time while minimizing silence between turns
PremiumVideo calls may seem like a boon in times like these but its far from what in-person interaction feels like. On the surface it may just sound like a matter of preference but Google has come up with a detailed explanation about why these interactions are not as satisfying.
Google tried to dig into the science behind remote communication and found some interesting revelations, especially for workers.
According to Zachary Yorke, UX Researcher at Google, humans are hardwired for the fast-paced exchange of in-person conversation."Humans have spent about 70,000 years learning to communicate face-to-face, but video conferencing is only about 100 years old. When the sound from someone's mouth doesn't reach your ears until a half second later, you notice," said Yorke.
According to the researcher, the lag happens because we're ingrained to avoid talking at the same time while minimizing silence between turns. Even a delay of five-tenths of a second is almost double of what we are used to hearing in a one on one conversation. The lag could come from laggy audio or fumbling for the unmute button.
In an office space, small talk plays an important role in setting up the motion of the meeting. According to the researcher, doing the same before starting official remote meeting could help ramp up the feel-good factor.
"Making time for personal connections in remote meetings not only feels good, it helps you work better together. Science shows that teams who periodically share personal information perform better than teams who don't. And when leaders model this, it can boost team performance even more," suggested the Google executive.
However, video calls are not as bad as emails when it comes to official communication. The researcher claims that the eye contact helps while either trying to explain a complex project or even while introducing a new person in the team.
In order to enhance the experience further, the researcher claims that you should "Have an open conversation with your remote teammates about your preferred working styles and how you might complement each other."
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