We Still Don’t Know How to Be Normal on Slack and Zoom

I was once trapped on a video call that was supposed to take 10 minutes but stretched to an hour. I couldn’t get a word in to wrap things up. My stomach growled as the tuna sandwich I’d made sat uneaten on my desk. I kept wondering: Is there a way to sneak a chomp?

Then we finished and exchanged goodbyes.

“Finally,” I said aloud. The other person had not yet hung up.

It seems like everyone has a tale of a cringey exchange on a messaging or video platform. Or they’ve endured a Zoom meeting where dead-eyed participants called to mind a supermarket fish counter.

Even though the pandemic forced us all to get more comfortable online, virtual communication can still be awkward. Apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams can strip away our nonverbal and social cues, so we are more prone to misunderstanding, said N. Sharon Hill, a professor of management at the George Washington University School of Business.

Video calls can be uncomfortable, too, said Andrew Brodsky, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “Ping: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication.” Seeing yourself onscreen can result in what’s called “mirror anxiety,” he said, which is the stress that arises from viewing your reflection for long periods of time.

I asked experts how we can make these encounters a little less awkward.

Do some preparation.

First, let people decide how they’d like to communicate, Dr. Brodsky said: “Taking a couple of seconds to ask the other person, ‘Hey, how do you want to do this?’ can eliminate awkwardness.”

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