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Eye Contact Correction: Redirecting the eyes to look at the camera

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164 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 01:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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Arch-TK ◴[16 Oct 24 14:37 UTC] No.41859538[source]▶
What is the modern obsession with video calls?

I have been working for a company which allowed full remote work without any qualms since before COVID and nobody did video calls back then. Since we end up on site in secure environments we also just get told to disable the camera in the BIOS as part of our laptop hardening.

For things like bi-annual meetings with your manager you would go into your local office.

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1. nonameiguess ◴[16 Oct 24 15:53 UTC] No.41860559[source]▶
I don't remotely get it, either. Most group calls I'm in involve one person presenting something and we're watching that, not each other. For things like a one-on-one call with my manager, we just talk. Shit, sometimes we even talk on the phone, but usually still a computer. He might be wearing no pants for all I care. I usually have a cat on me and am probably laying flat. If it's before 10 AM, because my wife goes to work so late, she's probably walking around naked behind me and nobody needs to be seeing that.

My company was also 100% remote from its start, even before Covid.

As others have stated, it's also just unnerving to have people making nonstop eye contact or staring at any part of your body at all, even if it isn't your eyes. Maybe 90s Los Angeles was an abnormally shitty place to grow up because of the gang activity, but this is the kind of thing kids started fights over all the time. Robert DeNiro's most famous movie scene is about how threatening it feels to have someone looking at you.

This isn't even unique to humans. When you regularly interact with animals, you're taught to look away and not hold direct eye contact because they'll see it as a challenge or threat. I've learned to do this with my own cats to make them more at ease. You learn to blink, narrow your eyes, look to the side.