Turn on or off your video during a zoom meeting?

Since COVID19 started in 2020, I have made more than 100 zoom calls with customers and another 100 more internal zoom calls with my colleagues in a year. Based on my experience, I would like to share my view on whether to turn the video on or off at the Zoom meeting. 

Basically, turn on the video

My conclusion is that I recommend turning on video during business meetings as much as possible. This is because 80% of our perception comes from our eyesight. So it’s a big advantage to use your visuals to make your customer understand and remember you.

However, we need to consider “Zoom Fatigue”, a network condition. Let’s review when to turn on the video and when to turn off the video.

When turn on and turn off the video?

Especially I think it’s better to turn on the video when

• Chatting before zoom meeting
• Self-introduction at the beginning of a zoom meeting
• I’m doing a presentation
• Meeting with someone I meet for the first time
• Everyone turns on the video
• Customers turn on the video
• Open discussion

On the other hand, I think we can turn off the video when

• Someone is doing a presentation
• Meeting with someone I know well
• Communication itself is the purpose such as a party
• The network condition is not stable
• There are many attendees

What are the benefits?

Ok, then list up benefits for both cases.

Benefits of turning on the video

• You can show your facial expressions and reactions

Benefits of turning off the video

• You can do something else such as using your smartphone
• You can reduce network bandwidth to make the connection stable
• You can save time because you don’t need to change clothes and set up your hair

Those are really a benefit?

• You can do something else such as using your smartphone

You can multitask and save time. However, you may give the impression that you don’t prioritize this zoom meeting and pay attention to something else.

• You can reduce network bandwidth to make the connection stable

Yes, this is true, sending video needs a much bigger network bandwidth than audio. So it makes sense to turn off the video when the network condition is not good or many attendees join.

According to Skype, a video call may need x80 times bigger network bandwidth. An audio call needs 100Kbps and a group call needs 8Mbps.

• You can save time because you don’t need to change clothes and set up your hair

It might be ok but I strongly recommend changing clothes and setup hair as well as a preparation for a F2F meeting.

What is Zoom fatigue?

Lastly, I would like to share about Zoom fatigue that we need to pay attention to.

We are exhausted by zoom calls because

• There is too much eye contact
• The cognitive load is heavy
• We can’t move out from the screen
• We look at ourselves on the screen

So this is because Zoom call looks like a F2F meeting but it is unnatural and unusual that makes us tired.

Please check the following posts to learn why zoom fatigue happens and what is the solutions.

Zoom fatigue is real: How to make it stop

Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes

Thank you for reading this post.

I hope this helps you!