Bring Back the Telephone

Videoconferencing has taken over the world. It might be time for the world to push back.

The long-term impact of the Covid pandemic on how people work remains very much an open question. But one undeniable consequence has been that the video call has become the default means of holding remote meetings or having conversations, even when only a couple of people are involved.

Zoom Technologies’ stock price may have taken a big hit over the past 4 months, as people started heading back to the office and as in-person meetings made a comeback. (Zoom’s stock price did jump a bit on Friday, when news of the Omicron variant broke.) But the assumption that the most productive way to talk is via video chat has thoroughly colonized the organizational imagination, so that “I’ll send you a link to the meeting” has totally eclipsed “I’ll give you a call.”

This isn’t a surprising turn of events, even if videoconferencing has long seemed like a technology that was always “the next big thing” without ever actually becoming the current big thing. Studies of how groups collaborate show that nonverbal cues can be important in getting group members in sync, which in turn can help them do a better job of exchanging information and solving problems collectively. Employee surveys suggest that being able to see…