In public speaking, eye contact is serious business, whether to one person or an audience of a thousand. Eye contact on Zoom is serious, too.
In the western hemisphere and other cultures worldwide*, making eye contact is a sign of respect. It is the way to connect to another. It shows you care. You can read more about eye contact on my page about that topic.
But this post is about eye contact on Zoom or any other video conferencing platform. As a past leader and active member of Toastmasters, I venture to say I had been on more than 100 zoom calls since the Covid lockdown in March 2020. When it comes to video conferencing, eye contact is a challenge. Why? Because we tend to look at the people on the screen. From their perspective, however, you are not making eye contact. They don’t feel connected.
To make eye contact on Zoom you must look into the eye of the camera. When you do that, you cannot gauge the reaction of your audience. The moment you drop your eyes to look at your virtual audience, you’ve broken your eye contact. You momentarily disconnect from your audience. If the audio is left on you can hear your audience. But often, when delivering a talk on a virtual platform like Zoom, the audio is silenced so that no background noise like babies crying or dogs barking interfere with your delivery.
In the image below, you can feel the difference when I look at the camera and when I’m don’t. Ironically, I feel connected to my audience when I’m looking at them and disconnected when I don’t. But that is the reality of video conferencing.
So, in conclusion, eye contact is an essential part of speaking. As hard as it is, look into the eye of the camera, not at your virtual audience. You may not feel connected, but your audience will.
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*here is a good article about eye contact with other cultures in the world.
