Study finds it beneficial to look at your webcam, not your monitor during Zoom calls and livestreams

Over the past few years, you’ve likely started taking meetings over Zoom or Google Hangouts, and you’ve probably noticed your eyes wandering around. Exactly what you should be looking at is a bit of a mystery. Should your eyes linger off-screen to avoid awkward eye contact? Should you be looking directly at your monitor so you can view the other person on the line?

Well, it turns out what you should be doing is looking directly into your webcam.

A new study by researchers at Stanford University and Sweden’s University of Gothenburg looked into some best practices for video conferencing and livestreaming, assuming a user wants to seem likable and trustworthy (and who doesn’t?).

The study, titled Impression Formation From Video Conference Screenshots: The Role of Gaze, Camera Distance, and Angle, took those exact attributes into consideration: where one’s eyes gaze during a video call, the distance they are from their camera, and even the camera angle, to determine which elicited the most comfortable response from viewers who were asked to rate images of webcam users for various attributes on a five-point scale.

The photos used in the video conference study.
Credit: https://tmb.apaopen.org/pub/qunlfsu2/release/1

The most positive response from an audience came from when the person they were looking at was gazing directly into their camera. 

Maintaining eye contact with the individuals you’re speaking to may seem obvious in a face-to-face setting, but in a video chat it can be quite a challenge. To maintain eye contact with someone, you need to look at the lens of your camera. However, for you, the speaker, your eyes would have to glance over at your screen to see reactions and other cues from your audience.

Your camera angle also plays a role in how people perceive you in video conferences as well. A high camera angle tends to give off a more sociable and likable presence. If you’ve ever watched an angry rant on YouTube or Twitter where the person on video holds the camera at a low angle, this starts to make a lot of sense. Those types of videos can give off a very threatening vibe. And, of course, nobody watching your livestream wants to look up your nose.

Interestingly, the distance between you and your camera did not have much of an effect on your perceived trustworthiness from viewers. Obviously, do not position the camera so close that it makes viewers uncomfortable, nor so far away that they can barely make out your expressions. 

There are a couple things to keep in mind about this study. First of all it used screenshots of speakers in video conferences and not an actual livestream or video chat. Secondly, the results are drawn from a “convenience sample” of about 4,000 self-selecting online survey participants, as opposed to a more formal test in a lab setting.

Regardless, it’s pretty clear that keeping your eyes on your webcam and your camera angle high are good ideas if you don’t want to come across as anti-social and shady in a video conference.