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Zoom Calls Are So Much Worse For Us Than You Think
Zoom Calls Are So Much Worse For Us Than You Think
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0:00
Ever since the pandemic, a ton of us are spending long chunks of our day on Zoom.
0:05
Or Google Meet, or Teams, or – Skype??
0:09
Every time I have to say “oh sorry, I think your mic cut out there”,
0:13
I feel a little bit of my soul escape from my belly button.
0:16
Though as annoying as it is,
0:18
video calls do keep me from having to wear pants and commute to the office,
0:23
and it doesn’t really affect my work all that much.
0:26
So for me it’s a worthwhile trade.
0:28
I’m not alone in that. 70% of people say that glitches in Zoom calls
0:33
don’t affect how they view the person they’re interacting with.
0:36
Except it turns out, that’s not actually true.
0:40
A 2025 study suggests that these seemingly insignificant blips
0:44
can have life-altering impacts.
0:47
[intro music]
0:51
Glitches are whenever there’s a temporary disruption in the audio or video of a video call.
0:56
This could be because your internet
0:58
can’t meet the high demands required for video streaming.
1:00
Or because your computer is spending
1:02
too much of its memory running other programs.
1:05
Or because of outdated software.
1:07
Or, sometimes, because of platform issues and outages.
1:11
Whatever the reason,
1:12
the result is your video and audio de-syncing, freezing, dropped frames or phrases,
1:17
or even straight-up crashing.
1:19
It always manages to freeze and crash
1:21
on the most unflattering face you’ve ever made, too.
1:24
One small survey found that folks experience glitches
1:26
in about 30-50% of their video calls.
1:30
Since they’re so frequent and typically out of our control,
1:33
it’s no wonder we feel like we don’t hold it against anyone.
1:36
Just breathe in, breathe out, and let those glitches go.
1:40
But as with so many things in psychology,
1:42
how we feel and how we behave don’t necessarily align.
1:46
In 2025, researchers in the US published a study
1:50
that looked at the effects of video call glitches
1:52
on our perception of conversation partners.
1:56
Basically, in various situations,
1:58
do we judge people differently when glitches occur?
2:01
So, for example, when participants watched an online webinar
2:05
by a health coach talking about the benefits of using sunscreen,
2:09
they understood the point the coach was making,
2:11
regardless of glitches.
2:13
But they trusted the speaker less if the video froze.
2:17
And when the glitches happened,
2:19
16% fewer participants indicated
2:21
that they would be interested in meeting the health coach in person
2:25
and working with them one-on-one.
2:27
That’s super important to consider
2:29
when we’re living in the era of telehealth.
2:31
There were similar results for other domains
2:34
with equally serious implications for our lives.
2:37
One experiment showed that in the context of a job interview,
2:40
glitches could lower interest in hiring
2:43
or supporting that candidate by over half a point on a seven point scale.
2:48
That’s an 8% drop, nearly a whole letter grade!
2:52
So if your call glitches during the interview,
2:54
that can affect the likelihood you get hired.
2:57
Of course, this was all measured during controlled experiments,
3:00
and the researchers wanted to know
3:02
if we actually see it play out in real life.
3:05
So they looked at four months of court transcripts
3:08
from virtual parole hearings in Kentucky.
3:11
That was 472 hearings.
3:14
They scoured the transcripts for indications that the video had glitched.
3:18
Phrases like “we lost you for a minute” or “I think you glitched”.
3:21
Around 33% of calls had these glitches,
3:24
which is about the same amount that people had self-reported
3:27
in that first survey we mentioned!
3:29
Anyway, they found that 60% of people
3:31
were granted parole if their video hearing was smooth,
3:35
whereas only 48% were granted parole if there had been a glitch.
3:40
That’s twelve points less likely to be granted parole,
3:44
just because your internet was bad.
3:46
The researchers tested whether this result might be due to glitches making it harder
3:50
to understand what your communication partner is talking about,
3:53
or because disruptions are frustrating,
3:55
or even because people blame the person experiencing the glitch.
4:00
But none of that seemed to entirely account for what’s going on.
4:04
Before we tell you what they think is going on with glitches, we’ve gotta run a quick ad.
4:09
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4:12
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5:41
Instead of glitches merely being frustrating,
5:43
the research team suggests that glitches are just downright uncanny.
5:48
Freezes and stuttering movements and delayed speech
5:51
don’t occur in real life conversation.
5:54
So they make something seem just a little bit off
5:56
and leave us feeling unsettled and kind of creeped out.
5:59
Essentially, glitches break the illusion that we’re having a real, personal interaction.
6:04
That isn’t great for how much we trust our communication partner,
6:08
or even for how much we just like them.
6:11
This effect panned out in the research team’s study,
6:14
with people reporting a greater sense of uncanniness
6:17
when there are glitches in a conversation.
6:20
Study participants found certain glitches more uncanny than others.
6:25
“Sustained freezes” and “video distortions” like pixelation
6:29
were ranked as least disturbing.
6:31
Whereas echo, “fleeting freezes”,
6:34
and “sustained video loss” were given the highest uncanniness scores.
6:39
The more uncanny the glitch,
6:40
the more it hurt the glitchy job candidate.
6:43
But remember earlier that I said 70% of people reported
6:47
that glitches don’t impact how they view the person they’re talking with.
6:51
That might be because they know glitches shouldn’t impact their judgments,
6:55
so they responded to the survey in a way that makes them look, or feel, better.
6:59
But it’s also possible that this is all subconscious,
7:02
and we don’t even realize that glitches are affecting us.
7:06
So what’s a virtual girl to do?
7:08
The researchers tested some potential solutions,
7:11
though the results weren’t super encouraging.
7:13
Warning people in advance that glitches might occur
7:16
didn’t make much of a difference at all.
7:18
Acknowledging a glitch after it happened,
7:20
saying something like “sorry for the glitch” or “I think I glitched there”,
7:24
actually made things worse.
7:26
One avenue that did show promise is making a joke about the glitch,
7:30
which the researchers think offsets the uncanniness factor
7:33
by explicitly reminding your conversation partner that the glitch is harmless.
7:38
It’s worth continuing to study how to lessen this effect,
7:42
and also to keep it in mind as policies, technology, and video chat scenarios evolve.
7:48
For example,
7:49
some states have permanently moved parole hearings
7:51
to virtual courtrooms because it’s cheaper and more secure
7:54
than transporting incarcerated people to a physical courtroom.
7:58
Those are real advantages,
8:00
but it also means that people in jails and prisons with poorer internet connections
8:04
and fewer resources are less likely to get parole
8:08
than people in facilities with good wifi.
8:11
And telehealth has been touted as a solution for people in low-income and rural areas
8:16
who may be far from doctors’ offices or not able to get away from work to make the trip.
8:22
But the people who turn to telehealth because they can’t easily access doctors’ offices
8:26
are the same people who have less reliable internet connections.
8:30
Telehealth may improve access to treatment,
8:32
but it might also cause folks to trust their providers less.
8:36
Or their providers might perceive them as less reliable patients.
8:40
As with basically every technology ever,
8:43
video conferencing has been great for expanding access
8:46
to previously inaccessible resources,
8:49
and for making many people’s lives easier.
8:52
But it has also potentially widened gaps in our society that already existed.
8:57
Moving forward, we need to ensure our technology glitches
9:00
aren’t leaving anyone lagging behind.
9:04
[ OUTRO ]
