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Fenton says his employees love being able to
spend more time with their kids. They get to know
one another by observing their apartments during
video calls; Fenton has a cat often sleeping on the
couch behind him, for instance, and he has a ukulele
on his wall. People log in early to video meetings just
to have idle chats, and they have great memories
from the all-company in-person meetings, he says.
Fenton argues that the importance of meeting
someone in person is overrated; humans can mis-
read body language, and they can be daydreaming
even in an in-person meeting.
Still, I found it hard to agree with Fenton as we
talked over a Zoom video call; I wanted to look him
in the eyes and show him that I was listening, but
instead I had to stare at the small green dot on my
computer. If I took my eyes off it, he might think me
rude for looking away from him. I asked Fenton if any
of his employees lived alone and felt depressed or
lonely, and he said he wasn’t sure. Before coronavirus
closed his gym, Fenton would make sure to go to a
6:30 a.m. fitness class each day to get some in-person
interaction. Now he’s working out with friends over
video calls. “It was a little unusual at first,” he says,
“but it’s been a great outlet and a lot of fun.”
Fenton says that interacting with people remotely
is different from but not necessarily inferior
to meeting them in person. “It’s like learning
a new language—not a complicated language,
just different,” he says of adjusting to remote
communication. “And once you get to understand
the difference, we’ve noticed that people just adjust
very naturally.”
That’s the argument that Spatial is making
too. Agarawala, the CEO, says that as 5G rolls out,
augmented reality will become faster and less glitchy.
Nreal, a tech company that is partnering with Spatial,
will this year release its Light augmented-reality
headset that looks more like a pair of sunglasses
than the current clunkier AR headsets, and that
should speed up adoption of remote work, Spatial
says. Already, Spatial is working on features that will
improve the collaborative experience; when people
say a word, for instance, they can make it appear in
the room, which can focus discussions. Spatial is also
working on simulated blinking and lip-synching to
make avatars look more real.
The company has seen an uptick in interest since
the coronavirus started spreading, says Lee, the CPO,
but even if the corona virus goes away, remote work
tools like Spatial will take over, because they’re
essential to combatting another crisis: climate
change. If people work remotely, buildings will have
smaller carbon footprints and people won’t need to
fly across the world to meet. Holographic meetings
would help the world cut down on carbon, he says.
Whether they will lead to a spike in loneliness is
another question. □163 MILLION
Number of people in the U.S. who have
been ordered or advised to stay home; as
of March 24, governors in 17 states had
directed residents not to go out unless
they had jobs providing essential services
that could not be performed remotely67%
Percentage of employers who have taken
steps to enable workers who usually come
into the office to work from home, according
to a survey by the law firm Seyfarth Shaw
conducted March 12 to March 1613%
Share of Hispanic or Latino workers who
were able to work from home in 2017 and
2018, according to data from the American
Time Use Survey; by contrast, 18% of black
workers, 26% of white workers and 28% of
Asian workers could work remotely47%
Share of workers with a bachelor’s degree
who work from home at least occasionally,
according to American Time Use Survey28%
Percentage of single-person households
in 2018 in the U.S., up from 16% in 1968;
in Japan, 34.5% of households were
single-person as of 2015, and more than
half of households in Denmark, Sweden
and Lithuania were made up of people
living alone in 201615 YEARS
Amount of time researchers say prolonged
social isolation can potentially shave off a
person’s life spanREMOTE WORK
BY THE NUMBERS
ILLUSTRATION BY BROWN BIRD DESIGN FOR TIME
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