Why Video Calling Is a Wasted Feature In the UK

An anonymous reader writes "Technology affects the way we live but sociocultural influences also dictate what technology we absorb into our day-to-day lives. Take video calling on the iPhone 4 for example; it was pitched as an impressive feature, but will people adopt it? According to one British writer, the UK is unlikely to start making lots of video calls because it's awkward and, well, not very British. 'It's not the way we look when we say them, but the way we say them in order to inject the most bile into a negative statement. Or, on our more enthusiastic days, finding the most wryly witty way to say something while indicating that you couldn't really care less about it. This is the reason we've taken so well to Twitter and are better at watching than creating YouTube videos, to put it in sweepingly generic Internet terms.'"

Comments

face for radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the British all have great radio faces.

Awkward?

[tenco]

Well, it is. Because you're not smiling in the camera but your peers face - which hasn't a camera behind it but above/besides it. So it always seems that your peer is intentionally avoiding looking at you.

Re:Awkward?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to lie to someone you're looking at because you can learn how to position your eyes/faces/hands/etc in such a way as to gain their trust.

Body language in general helps people get away with lots of things that don't transfer well over phone/e-mail/letters. Whether it's lying, bullshitting, persuading, or otherwise.

But on the converse, what the grandparent said is also true. It's easier to tell a lie to a piece of paper then it is to a person assuming you have any amount of empathy. If you lack empathy, then you'll be able to lie equally well to both.

Maybe they can invent avatars for your teeth?

[linzeal]

Seriously though, it is not taking off in the United States either. Skype was installed, setup and demonstrated on at least a dozen of my family's laptops this Christmas and the only person that uses it is my Sister. The reasons I have been given is that they don't want to be seen as fat, unshaven or unclean or that they would rather talk on the phone because they don't want to sound weird. Older people seem to think it is a gimmick and young people would rather text you and 5 other people than give you your full attention on a video link.

Re:Maybe they can invent avatars for your teeth?

[Kilrah_il]

Well, people here voiced all kinds of reasons why video call aren't useful, but I think David Foster Wallace summed it up best in his amazing novel, Infinite Jest. The book was published in 1996 and revolved about a future USA (~10-20 years in the future). In the following excerpt he gives an assay about why video calls failed (past tense):

Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation [...] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet -- and this was the retrospectively marvelous part -- even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end's attention might be similarly divided.

[...] Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener's expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those caller who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking extra rude, absentminded, or childishly self-absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril explored looked up to find horrified expressions on the video-faces at the other end. All of which resulted in videophonic stress.

There is a bit more at this link and a lot more at the book itself, which I highly recommend.

Broad sweeping statements are foolish

[fat_mike]

And another crappy ad exchange to a crappy site masquerading as a "news" source is worse.

You're thinking laptop camera though

[SuperKendall]

There's enough of a separation between the frame of a laptop (where the camera lives) and the video you are watching, that the direction of eyesight being different is noticeable.

With a mobile device, it seems like it would look a lot more like the person was looking at you, rather than offscreen.

Proximity and usability

[SuperKendall]

I think the difference that will explain adoption is this - the degree of usability and proximity.

With Skype, you have to launch the application. Then the other person has to be running skype - if they are not a skype user they are probably not going to do so. Then you have to arrange to have a time when they will run skype, and in the end wasn't a phone call just easier? I don't use skype video calling for just this reason.

Furthermore, you can call someone with a phone in your pocket when you have to go to a laptop or desktop to make a video call. Again, the phone call (or text) is simply easier.

But by the looks of things Apple has again, taken an idea that has been around for some time and made it easy enough to use that the level of convenience is nearly the same as a phone call. By the looks of things it's just another option when you are calling someone (and on WiFi), a video option appears and you are video conferencing. There's no setup by the end user, and they can video chat on the device they always have with them.

That leaves the other factors remaining - will people want to receive video calls at random times? When it's as easy to video as call, will people do so? That remains to be seen. But the first, necessary, step to adoption was to make it no harder than a phone call.

Re:Proximity and usability

[guyminuslife]

One thing I like about voice-only on phone calls is that I can be naked, and the other person has no idea whatsoever.

The same goes for Internet forums.

Re:Proximity and usability

[commodore64_love]

>>>One thing I like about voice-only on phone calls is that I can be naked

The one thing I LIKE about video calls is that my girlfriend can be naked, and I can watch. :-) Webcam chatting has become popular with teens, and I bet Video iPhone calls will too. They are young, thin, and naturally beautiful. They don't mind being seen.

It's only us older folks (30 and up) that don't want to be seen, due to sagging skin, expanding waistline, or whatever
.

Re:Proximity and usability

[drinkypoo]

It's only us older folks (30 and up) that don't want to be seen, due to sagging skin, expanding waistline, or whatever

People all over the world are fatter than ever before. Kids in the USA hold the title, but UK kids aren't far behind. Further, kids are usually highly critical of their own appearance, in large part likely due to the messages they receive from advertisers.

It is not an Apple invention

[donstenk]

The article makes it sound like a breakthrough by Apple but videocalling has been around for at least 3 years in Italy and has not taken on for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it does not solve a problem the user has.

Video skype is popular amongst families distributed over various countries mostly because it is free. I don't know, but I think international mobile videocalls are probably not free or cheap.

I had a Nokia e61 with a front facing camera for years and have not used it even once.

Dennis.

Redundant

[ultranova]

Video calling is simply redundant in Britain. Wherever you are, you can simply say: "Mr. Policeman, could you please forward a copy of this surveillance footage to Mr. So-and-so?"

Multitasking

[LoverOfJoy]

I think the problem with phones is multitasking. I'm often talking on the phone while looking at something else, working on something else, reading, attending to my kids, heck, even going to the bathroom if I'm really feeling the urge and think I can get away with it. People will feel guiltier if their friends can see you're not giving them you're undivided attention.

With a computer, it's not QUITE as noticeable if you're also surfing while chatting (though you CAN still tell if you pay attention or if you're noisily typing away) but it's still a bit of a problem.

generation difference and convenience

[OrangeTide]

Given that there are plenty of YouTube submissions from the UK I suspect the broad generalizations painted in the article are unrealistic. Also I have found some younger Brits to be culturally different in attitude(and wit!) than 30-something and older Brits.

I suspect cell phone video conference will not be widely adopted for other reasons. Mostly revolving around obvious things like convenience. Texting is convenient because you can do it more discreetly than a voice call, which explains its huge popularity with teenagers. Parents and teachers can't overhear a texting conversation, but they could overhear a video call.

I suspect video calls will mainly be used by horny teenagers so they can expose themselves to other horny teenagers.

Re:Apple made a mistake, I believe...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Maybe this whole thing is indicitive of something else

That not everyone else is as anti-social or socially inept as many of us here?

I don't think that video calls will become as popular as voice calls or SMS. But people will still use it for all sorts of things, including being a more personal form of communication. People like options when it comes to how they communicate; that's why SMS and email are popular.

Apple hasn't made a mistake here. They've finally taken steps to make video calling easy enough for anyone to use. It might be a while before society completely adapts to the technology, but I don't see any reason why it won't happen.

On the other hand, yeah, what does Apple know about popularising technology, right?

Toilets, Cars, etc.

[tomhudson]

Nobody wants video calling.

1. Someone calls you when you're in the bathroom - no thanks
2. Someone calls you when they're in the bathroom "Hey mom, check this out before I flush" - no thanks
3. You're driving your car - sorry, hands-free earpiece only allowed by law.
4. You were sleeping and they woke you up - no thanks.
5. They're boring you and you can't just go "uh-uh" or "okay" every few minutes while you fold the laundry - no thanks
6. You're with someone else and you don't want them to see because then they'll want to talk to them also - no thanks
7. You're with someone else and you don't want them to see because then they'll shoot you - no thanks
8. You're not where you said you'd be - no thanks
9. You can't just crinkle some cellophane against the mike and say "We've got a bad connection" and hang up - no thanks
10. It's the boss "keeping an eye on you" - no thanks
11. I don't have my bluetooth with me so all they'll see is my ear - no thanks
12. They don't have their bluetooth with me so they've got their stupid phone on speakerphone - no thanks

It's been out for years. Nobody wants it.

Re:ha

[catmistake]

yeah, totally. Nokia has the video calling space sown up. What is Apple thinking? Don't they know they can't just jump into a technology space where they weren't first, and just take over with superior marketing, software and hardware, stealing large percentages of their competitors sales? oh... wait a second...