How Being Watched Changes Your Performance in Video Calls

Ever wondered how being watched during a video call affects your work? A recent study dug into this, focusing on how our performance changes when others see us on screen. It's all about the idea that having an audience can either boost or hinder our performance, depending on the task's difficulty.

Study Details

The study looked at how people did on visual-reasoning tasks under different video call settings. Participants were asked to complete tasks as fast and accurately as possible while being watched in various ways:

• Video On: Their video was visible to others.
• Screen Sharing: They shared their screen.
• Avatar Presence: They saw a researcher's avatar.

The goal was to see how these different conditions affected their performance.

Key Findings

Interestingly, the study found:

• Better Performance on Tough Tasks: When participants' videos were visible to others, they did better on difficult tasks.
• Faster on Easy Tasks: Sharing their screen helped them work faster on easier tasks.
• No Significant Impact: The researcher's presence (avatar) didn't have much impact.

Implications

This research sheds light on how our performance can be influenced by the way we interact in virtual settings. It suggests that the mere presence of others, even through a screen, can have real effects on how we perform. The study also introduces the idea of "soft-presence," which might open up new ways to think about how we engage in video conferences.