Anecdotally, I've heard even kindergarten teachers are running reflection sessions over videoconferencing, and trying to help kids feel less lonely.

In my personal experience, being able to see others' faces and eyes has been helpful during this time.

That said, many video conferencing tools I've used let you switch into an audio-only mode (and not downloading the others' video) if you prefer.

My 4yo did a "circle time" over Zoom with his preschool class yesterday. I was skeptical, but he loved it and it was a huge morale boost to see his friends. This is a hard time for little kids.

My martial arts dojo is running “virtual” sessions. Is there some theoretical pedagogical advantage to this over nothing? Yes. But the real advantage is having a community to connect to. The video is important for that.

I don't even mention it if others don't turn on their video, but I have to admit I struggle much more to follow someone through audio alone. Ironically I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks, but there I can just press the button to "jump back 30s", which I do on most information dense episodes.

I do wonder if we could adapt deepfake tech to improve compression. A keyframe plus tracking of facial features could provide a very low bandwidth simulacrum of video calls.

Facebook Reality Labs is working on something called Codec Avatars. The goal of this is exactly what you describe. Check it out!

This is a plot device in Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep". Something seems off in communications from an apparently friendly spaceship. Use of cached facial models means that whoever/whatever controls the ship now is just puppeting the models of the crew over a deliberately low bandwidth link.

So many clever ideas in that book.

Thanks, seems interesting.

I've switched to working from home, like the rest of the company, I don't have a webcam and I think it could help, perhaps not for all meetings, but at least for the daily SCRUM meeting.

I mean, everyone is already isolated. You want to remove a few people showing their faces? It’s currently the only few minutes of face to face contact a lot of us have.

Meaningless attacks on people's physical appearance, race, and gender are not welcome on HN.

No one is forcing you to download video you don't want.

> No one is forcing you to download video you don't want.

If its a work meeting...then yes they are absolutely being forced to download video they don't want. They could possibly minimize the window, but then they lose out on key things like muting and screensharing. I'm not aware of any meeting software that lets you turn off the video of other participants (though you can usually do it for audio).

We share tons examples of work via video so maybe you get a bunch of white dudes (and yes the higher corporate meetings are), but on team scale it is very useful.

We only use video when needed.

It is not needed very often.

Screensharing for a virtual whiteboard, or troubleshooting is very much a thing.

It's not just for looking at "balding white dudes" (which itself is very insulting in its own right).