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Those gamers are still tied to screens.



True. But the focus is entirely different. Gamers interact while engaged in a task: the task is the focus, and communication happens through speech or text. Playing a game and communicating via Discord is a pleasure. Contrast that with a meeting on Zoom or Teams, and the focus shifts. If the screen is filled with little videos of other people, it's mentally exhausting in a way gaming isn't.

I think online meetings I had 10 years ago, where we'd share a desktop but it was voice-only for all participants, were easier on everyone than the current Hollywood Squares presentation of most online meeting applications. Those are mentally and emotionally taxing in ways that gaming is not.


Our experience is that after 2+ years of working mostly remotely, that very few people use web cams in meetings, and then only for the initial introduction. Apart from giving ammunition to laugh at somebodies 5 day beard, it is completely unnecessary.

We do however spend many hours a day in audio chat, sharing screens discussing technical issues and possible solutions.

This is a vast contrast to how we used to collaborate before Covid, where we'd have long in person meetings, where most of the people in the room drifted off watching the birds out the window whilst a couple of egos would speak to what ever they through was important.

There seems to be an belief, especially in the VR world, that body language, even eye movement is what you have meetings for. This may be important in some domains, maybe sales, but for technical meetings, I don't need to see your eyes, I need to see your ideas... Lets face it, it's a meeting, not a date.


Glad you noticed. Now extrapolate to other activities which are not tied to screens, such as... virtual conversation. We've actually done this for decades too: telephones. Radio. Etc.

The joke here is, gamers are less tied to the screen than most video call participants feel or even are. That while one requires near-constant focus on the screen, and the other doesn't.




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