Since March, my temple’s Youth Group has been hosting meetings online over Zoom. For me they’ve been essential to coping with the past few months. I’ve found them a tremendous source of joy and of purpose. But I also miss gathering together. There has been something lost.
It’s easy to point out why video conferencing apps like Zoom fall short by naming the ways that they’re unlike in-person meetings. For example, there are no high fives. And there are almost never snacks.
But that’s a bit like preferring the mountains over the beach because mountains have more goats. Beaches, with notable exceptions, aren’t trying to have goats. And Zoom isn’t built for snacks. But I’m been thinking through what videoconferencing is missing that is essential to its purpose. And I think I have an answer: it doesn’t allow us to communicate our attention.
Let me tell you what I mean:
In college, I remember trying to pick where to sit on the first day of class. It felt like a big decision. After all, even without a seating chart, where you sit on the first day is probably where you’ll be for the next ten weeks. And if I was feeling good about the class, I always tried to sit as close to the exact middle of the room as possible.
I had theories: Sitting in the back was where you went to not participate and not be noticed. Sitting in the front was reserved for (a) people with bad eyesight, (b) people who arrived late, and (c) shameless apple polishers.
But I wanted the middle. Sure, I could see the professor but, unlike sitting in front, I could also see anyone in class without too much neck craning. When another student spoke I could hear their words plus I could see their face and body language. From the middle I could listen to and pay attention to everyone.
Sitting in the middle also meant it was easy to be heard if I wanted to be, but just as easy to fade into the background and just listen to others. I didn’t have to draw attention to myself.
Zoom is a classroom with only a front row and a back row. Camera on: front row. Camera off: back row. There isn’t a way to show another person you’re giving them attention without also opening yourself up to attention. There is no middle of the room. And I think that’s where most people feel comfortable.
“Attention” has become a buzzword in wellness circles, especially when talking about mindfulness. Like it’s a secret sauce that makes everything taste better. But I don’t think it’s possible to pay attention to all things at all times. Our attention is inherently selective. Buddhist discourse has a lot to say about what is beneficial to pay attention to, and what to look for. But even in our everyday lives, how we focus our attention is a way we communicate care.
In our temple’s Youth Group part of what creates trust is the communication of attention. We sit in a circle and, when someone shares, the rest of the group looks and listens.
But on Zoom, looking at the speaker means looking at the screen. And the screen itself has a sea of faces, each looking into the screen, too. Where we once could turn our heads to show we care, that care now must be taken on trust. Which makes it all that much harder when that trust is not yet there. Like when someone is new and trying to make friends for the first time.
In the pandemic, Zoom has been a lifeline to the people we love. It’s offered us connection when in-person contact isn’t possible. But with the surge in COVID cases and the return to lock down, I’ve been thinking more about all the people who need to make new friends and build new bonds of trust. About new people who might visit our Youth Group. And how Zoom’s inability to communicate attention makes it so much harder.
When we lose the middle of the classroom, we also lose the possibility of giving a moderate amount of attention, which is the space most comfortable for a newcomer.
Remember for a moment the last time you went to a new place for the first time. You probably didn’t want to be ignored, but unless you are a rare super-gregarious person you also didn’t want undivided attention and enthusiastic backslapping. You probably wanted something in between. To be seen but not stared at.
I’m still looking, but I haven’t found the Zoom equivalent of walking up to a new Youth Group member after a meeting and saying, one-on-one, “Hi, I’m John. I really liked that thing you said.”
There may not be a replacement. Our big `ol sapien brains have been chewing on social relationships for a long, long time. I don’t suspect that all of their nuance can be translated to a screen. And it’s foolhardy to think we can face this pandemic without giving things up, even the small things.
There could be a technological or a design answer to the problem of communicating attention. But as months may turn to years, it’s clear we can’t grit our way through this. We’re going to have to change. Which to me means finding new ways to be giving with our attention and our care. And to build new bonds of friendship and trust.
Until then, I’ll keep trying to do more with words, to replace what was once so effortless without.
Images licensed under Creative Commons by Derek Bruff and GARNET.
