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Scientists are still puzzling out why in-person
communication is superior, Wheatley says, but her
lab has found some clues. The more eye contact peo-
ple have during a conversation, she says, the more in
sync they are with each other. The current state of
video calls, in which you stare at a tiny dot that is the
camera in your computer or phone to make it appear
that you’re looking someone in the eyes, cannot rep-
licate that experience. Connecting with others has
long been important to humans, she says—people
trust one another more when they share a communal
meal off the same plate instead o f eating from indi-
vidual plates, o r when they pass around a bottle of
wine rather than just drinking their own beverages.
Prolonged isolation in the most extreme circum-
stances, as with prisoners in solitary confinement,
is associated with a 29% risk of premature death, and
studies have shown that extended isolation also leads
to a d ecrease in the size of the hippocampus, which
is t he p art o f t he b rain related to learning, memory
and spatial awareness. Some scientists estimate that
loneliness shortens a person’s life span by 15 years
and i s e quivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. “I
think i t’s not just that everybody loves social inter-
action a nd parties a nd whatnot,” Wheatley says. “I
think it’s critically important to our mental and phys-
ical health.”
In one study, people were asked to perform a
stressful task: prepare a five-minute speech and
complete a verbal arithmetic task to perform in
front of an audience. Each participant received ei-
ther in- person support or support over text message.
People felt happier after completing the t ask i f t heyhad received i n-person support. “It wasn’t that text-
ing was bad. It’s just t hat i t was consistently not as
good as in-person support,” says Susan Holtzman,
a p rofessor of psychology at the University of Brit-
ish Columbia and one of the study’s authors. People
benefit from visual cues like seeing a friend smile,
which makes them smile too, she says. They also read
audio cues; one study found that levels of a bonding
hormone were higher among mothers and daugh-
ters who t alked on the phone than among those who
texted each other. Another study of young women
found that they bonded most closely through in-
person interaction, followed by video chat, audio
chat a nd i nstant messaging, in that order. Research
has also shown that being in the same room as a loved
one can ease physical pain.
“The thing that has to get solved on the tech side,”
says Wheatley, “is the tech needs to kind of disap-
pear so that you believe that you are in the room.”
But there are still big differences between people
working in the s ame room and people c ollaborating
remotely. For one thing, it’s much easier to multi task
when you’re working remotely—talking on the phone
while responding to a Slack message while looking up
recipes for dinner, for instance, and not giving anyone
your full attention. That behavior is hard to hide in
an o n-s ite meeting, where your eyes are expected t o
focus on colleagues or whoever is speaking. “When
we are face to face with someone, we typically have
that pers on’s undivided attention,” Holtzman says.
Some people also feel self-conscious when they
can see an image of themselves on the screen—a
common feature o f most videoconfe rencing a pps—^
Workers appear
as holograms
at a meeting
using Spatial’s
collaboration
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