Getting Social with VideoGetting Social with Video

What we can learn during a video call is far greater than what is provided by audio alone.

Meeting face-to-face is usually much better than a phone call or audio conference, and the use of video conferencing provides a face-to-face conversation. You learn more with video than with audio alone. Video conferencing is easily justified because it can reduce travel expenses and avoid the travel time, making users more productive. I argue that video has some benefits over audio conferencing in that it conveys more information that just a picture with sound.

I record many podcasts face-to-face at conferences. Face-to-face conversations are easier to accomplish because I can read the facial expressions and body language of the other individual. I can also digest the background sound and visuals to tune them out or respond to them accordingly.

When you look at a person or group of people, you are both unconscious and conscious of their behavior. You and the other party are conveying more than what is spoken. Robert Masters, in his article "Compassionate Wrath: Transpersonal Approaches to Anger,"presented his view of affect, feeling, and emotion:

When watching others in a video conversation, we can observe affect, feeling, and emotion. What we can learn during a video call is far greater than what is provided by audio alone.

The two pictures below are taken from "Emotional and Social Signals: A Neglected Frontier in Multimedia Computing," written by Hatice Gunes and Hayley Hung. The article investigates computer processing of social signals.

Here, I'm using some of the content to analyze what people see and do during a video conversation. Inspect the picture below to see what parts of video may not be provided in an audio conference.

The context surrounding the conversation, both visible and invisible, can further augment the social signals. There are three contexts that surround the video conversation:

There are people who can pick up on many of the social cues I have attributed to video conversations, but most can't. Video clearly adds to the comprehension of a conversation. The "Emotional and Social Signals" paper mentioned at the beginning of this blog explores the idea that computer recognition of these cues is on the horizon. This may help some people, but I think the human interpretation of social signals will still be superior.

We may, in the future, see training offered for video participants to learn social expressions and conditions when watching others. If this happens, you can expect that there will training for opposite behavior, training so people can only see the social cues I want to provide.