Author: Sree Mitra
A week on the beach is how I start the holiday season. I take early morning walks every day. There is something so majestic yet serene about a sunrise on the ocean horizon, and it gives me time to reflect on the year gone by.
As I was enjoying my walk on a recent beach trip, I noticed a lady holding up her phone, seemingly engaged in a FaceTime call. “That is so sweet,” I think, “She’s sharing this beautiful sunrise with someone special.” But as I get closer, I notice something strange. The picture on her screen has a beach in the background too. So, I think, “That’s amazing. She is face-timing with someone who is at a different beach”. As I pass her, I glanced again, and realized that the main screen on her phone had her own face, while the person she’s talking to appears in the small tile.
Questioning the necessity
Now, I had the benefit of a long walk ahead of me with a fairly clear mind to reflect on what I just witnessed — why would a person need to look at their own face while talking to someone?
While this has become a communication blase recently, I couldn’t help but wonder — 1) what’s causing us to perpetuate this behavior, and 2) what impact does this have on us, specifically our mental health?
In regular one-on-one or personal interactions, we cannot see our own faces while speaking. The focus is typically on the other person, allowing us to be more engaged and genuinely interested (well.. depends who we are interacting with or what is the topic of discussion). Yet somehow all the virtual platforms include the option to view ourselves during conversations.
Before the pandemic, our encounters with our own reflection were limited. We might catch a glimpse in a car window or shop window or spend a few minutes in the morning getting ready. We might use the restroom during the day to check our appearance before an important meeting, but that was the extent of our self-observation.
Now, without consciously realizing it, we spend an average of five to six hours every day looking at ourselves through screens.
The obvious side-effects
Self-view on virtual calls can significantly impact the quality of communication and the ability to focus on the conversation.
Reduced focus
The presence of our own face on the screen, whether it takes up a small or large portion of the display, diverts our attention from the conversation. Our brain, unable to truly multitask, switches between focusing on our own appearance and the discussion at hand. This constant shifting of focus directly affects our ability to fully engage in the conversation.
Poor response
Instead of fully concentrating on what the other person is saying, we may find ourselves distracted by our own appearance. This distraction compounds the existing difficulties of active listening, such as:
- Getting sidetracked by our own thoughts
- Planning our response while the other person is still speaking
- Being distracted by background elements unrelated to the discussion
Patchy information retention
The constant switching of attention between the conversation and our own appearance also impacts our ability to retain information. The mental stress and distraction caused by the mirror feature can lead to retaining significantly less information compared to a situation without this distraction.
Imagine you’re in a virtual meeting discussing an important project. You find yourself glancing at your own face on the screen, adjusting your hair, or worrying about your appearance. Meanwhile, the other participants are sharing crucial details about the project timeline and deliverables. Due to the distraction of the mirror feature, you may miss key points and struggle to recall important information later.
What is not so obvious
While you may catch yourself if you are not paying attention, or the other person calls you out to get your focus back, there is something more harmful that is happening here that is going unnoticed — the impact self-view has on our mental health.
Increased fatigue and tiredness
A comparison between people who participate in in-person meetings for extended periods and those who participate in virtual meetings with the mirror feature on for the same duration indicates that the second group experiences much more fatigue and tiredness. The word ‘Zoom-fatigue’ is a thing that everyone understands. This is not intended to be a dig on Zoom but questioning our behaviors that we have unconsciously adopted to our own detriment. The mental fatigue can also result in a higher chance of burnout and impact our ability to perform at a higher level.
Self-consciousness and self-criticism
The self-view feature can have a direct impact on making us more self-conscious. Whether we like it or not, or are intentionally doing it, most of us have a tendency to be self-critical — how we look, how we talk, how we present ourselves. With the self-view feature, we are focusing on — “Do I look ok? Is my hair sticking up? Am I smiling adequately? Am I frowning too much? Oh god, did I just make that face? Did the dog just walk in through the door?” Yes, this is the extent of my internal dialogue.
This constant self-judgment and self-criticism over extended periods of time has a significant impact on our mental health.
Self-objectification
Constant exposure to one’s own image during video calls can lead to increased self-objectification, where individuals view themselves as objects to be evaluated based on appearance. This self-objectification can result in:
- Decreased self-esteem
- Increased anxiety about appearance
- Higher risk of depression
- Potential development of disordered eating habits
Research has shown that the more time people spend on video calls while focusing on their looks, the less satisfied they become with their appearance.
The solution is quite simple, and we have full control
As we navigate this new reality of communication, it’s crucial to be mindful of the potential consequences. It’s time to take a step back and reevaluate how we interact with technology, ensuring that it enhances our lives rather than adding unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Turning off the self-view feature is a simple way to address distractions in virtual communication. Every platform, such as Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, or Google Meet, has this capability.
- On Zoom, hover over the video preview in the meeting window, click the three dots, and then select “hide self-view” from the menu.
- For FaceTime on an Apple phone, open the FaceTime menu, pull up on the menu to reveal all the different options, and tap “camera off.” You can also do this while you are on a call by opening the control center, tapping on the video effects, tapping on your tile, and taking the camera view off for the self-view.
As I write this article, it’s hard for me to visualize a situation where I need to look at my own face while talking to another person. When I’m on a phone call, its not like I’m standing in front of a mirror and talking, so why should I be looking at myself on a FaceTime or Zoom call? Now that I’m aware of the effect the self-view feature has on my ability to focus on the conversation and the taxing effect it has on my mental health, I’m going to be more conscious about turning this off.
The role of leaders in promoting change
If you are focused on understanding the importance of a clear and balanced mind, you owe it to your teams and the people you work with to spread this message. First, you need to realize the difference it can have in your performance levels and your ability to focus and engage fully through virtual communication. Once you see that it truly does make a difference, you need to spread the message and enable others to make that change.
If you, as a leader, have the ability to create the standard in your organization where your communication platform switches off the self-view by default, and you can work with your technology partner to figure out how to do that, then I highly recommend that you consider it as part of your organization’s ways of working and how people communicate over virtual meetings. Considering that we all spend roughly five to six hours on virtual meetings these days, this can have a huge impact on not just your team’s performance but their overall wellness.
Fostering connection in remote and hybrid work environments
One interesting last point I would like to make is the debate around how the remote and hybrid work environment has negatively impacted our ability to connect with the people we work with. While that will largely continue — because an in-person interaction is, after all, an in-person interaction, and we humans as social animals need that in-person interaction — research shows that when turn-off that self-view feature, the experience we have is much closer to an in-person meeting.
Given hybrid work environments are the norm now, maybe to some extent, we can counter the effect of virtual work style and our inability to connect with the other person by taking off the self-view. Why not give it a try? It could be a good experiment to see over a period if we feel more connected with our colleagues, when instead of looking and focusing on ourselves, we are giving our full attention to the person we are talking to.
Your next virtual call or meeting offers a chance to practice active listening and maybe taxing your brain just a smudge bit less. Turn off your self-view and watch how your attention naturally flows toward the people in your conversation. You may also find that at the end of the day you are not as tired.
Our team explores many such day-to-day phenomena and its effect on our mental strength and performance. We dig into the science and convert it into simple, easy to adopt techniques that enhances mental clarity, emotional balance and resilience. Learn more on our systematic ways to learning mind skills by following us on all social media channels.