A recent study published in Psychological Science In the Public Interest by Lisa Feldman Barrett and others revealed that “… on average adults in urban cultures scowled when they were angry 30% of the time. Which means that some 70% of the time they did not scowl when angry.” (Id. at 2.) Rather, they may have scowled because they were concentrating, or after hearing a bad joke, or feeling unwell. (Id. at 2.)

A recent article, “The Reason Zoom drains your energy” by Manyu Jiang (April 22,2020 ), notes:

Being on a video call requires more focus than a face-to-face chat, says Petriglieri. Video chats mean we need to work harder to process non-verbal cues like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language; paying more attention to these consumes a lot of energy. “Our minds are together when our bodies feel we’re not. That dissonance, which causes people to have conflicting feelings, is exhausting. You cannot relax into the conversation naturally,” he says.(Id.)

Silence is another challenge, he adds. “Silence creates a natural rhythm in a real-life conversation. However, when it happens in a video call, you became anxious about the technology.” It also makes people uncomfortable. One 2014 study by German academics showed that delays on phone or conferencing systems shaped our views of people negatively: even delays of 1.2 seconds made people perceive the responder as less friendly or focused. (Id. at 2.)

And added to this is the fact that we ARE on camera: we are being watched and are no doubt self-conscious- either consciously or unconsciously- about our appearance including our facial expressions. (Id.)

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