We drink wine while skyping with friends, grandmothers read to grandchildren about Facetime fairy tales, math teachers explain geometry on the blackboard picture transferred to the youth room, companies confer via video call: This is how social and professional closeness works in times of pandemic.
But do video meetings really replace personal contact, at least better than talking on the phone or writing messages?
The answer is: No - that is the clear message of two scientific studies that have just appeared.
People do not feel closer to their counterpart when they look them in the face via webcam.
This was the result of a survey that social psychologists from the University of Duisburg-Essen carried out at the beginning of the corona crisis.
The possibility of chatting via webcam, they report, does not even motivate them to stick to the necessities of social distancing more diligently.
More perceived closeness than audiovisual communication, they write in the "International Journal of Psychology", creates regular exchange via text messages.
Even if it's not about friendship and free time, but about working with colleagues, video conferences do badly, report American economists and communication scientists in the journal »Plos One«.
According to their experiments, people who can only hear each other work better together at a distance than those who can also see the other person.
Amazingly, nonverbal aspects of communication, they conclude, are more likely to be lost than supported in video.
Enlarge image
Video conference - but no proximity
Photo: Yves Herman / Reuters
Digital wine tastings and online birthday parties are likely to be over as soon as the pandemic is contained - that's not a shame.
It would be a bad thing for people, possibly encouraged by this knowledge, to get back on the plane soon to meet customers and colleagues all over the world in person.
Video telephony could also turn out to be a climate saver.
In any case, I am really looking forward to the next conference, at which I can sit face-to-face with my colleagues again - and I will be traveling by train.
Heartily
Yours Julia Koch
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Feedback & suggestions?
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Abstract
My reading recommendations this week:
In
this interview with the Guardian, the
physicist and book author Michio Kaku
explains why he thinks that the world formula is within reach and why we shouldn't get in touch with aliens.
How many people lost the lives of Donald Trump's disastrous pandemic management?
In the USA, the process of coming to terms has begun - what is required is a commission of inquiry like after 9/11.
Why Sascha Lobo has lost
the remaining trust in Armin Laschet's political abilities.
Cologne not only has Roman roots, but also an important Jewish history,
which is now increasingly being revealed through excavations.
How did Russia's cosmonauts train for their space flights?
Unlike the US astronauts.
Quiz*
1. What botanical similarities do an apple tree and the strawberry plant have in common?
2. Which inventor filed more than a thousand patents?
3. What do a ruby and a sapphire have in common?
* You can find the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture of the week
Enlarge Image Photo: Isaac Watson / NASA
With 32,000 kilonewtons of thrust
, these engines of the NASA rocket “Space Launch System” are supposed to shoot the first woman to the moon - but only in a few years.
This idea emerged under the Donald Trump administration, and so far at least President Joe Biden has pursued it.
In the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the engines were initially positioned for the unmanned "Artemis I" mission.
footnote
The longest dry period in a year in the western United States now lasts
32
days.
This was the result of a study by the US Department of Agriculture in which historical weather data were evaluated.
In the 1970s it was still 20 days.
In addition to higher temperatures due to climate change, the irregular rainfalls contribute significantly to the water shortage and the growing risk of forest fires in the region
Recommendations from science
Climate crisis: the dangerously overestimated benefits of reforestation projects
Zoology: Should aliens one day land on Earth, we might be amazed at how similar they are to us
Stone Age: The decoding of what is probably the oldest known genome of modern humans sheds new light on human history
Particle physics: An experiment from Chicago provides the first reliable evidence of the existence of a completely new physics
* Quiz answers
1) Both belong to the rose family.
2) Thomas Alva Edison, who not only invented the light bulb, but also the phonograph (for sound recordings), an electric pen and the power grid.
3) They consist of the same mineral (corundum).
