It’s coming up on a year’s time that we have all been sent to our rooms, that is, Zoom Rooms. With the pandemic forcing us to take special precautions, prayer, meetings, conferences, and even social gatherings have taken place virtually, in the virus-free, sanitized world of cyberspace. The experience has been liberating and oppressive all at once, but the better part of ourselves should recognize the blessing in having such a tool at our disposal, especially during a crisis like this one. Nonetheless, as with other social interactions, the following proposed conventions will minimize the awkward and uncomfortable faux pas that so many of us have experienced or witnessed. A few tips are in order to avoid becoming a Zoom Room Un-Sensation:
YOUR NAME
We all have one, and it’s not Batman,
Supergirl, or “The Beaver.” In a session with multiple windows and people who
do not necessarily know each other, use your name, your proper name, and no
other. In the very least, it should be your first name, but preferably, it
should be your full first and last names.
YOUR FACE
Look at that punim (Yiddish for face)! I
am—and it’s a fine photo but, hey—are you there? I don’t know because I can’t
see you. I can only see your photo. Showing up to a Zoom event with only your
photo in the window gives new meaning to the tongue-in-cheek reprimand—Earth to
Jerry, earth to Jerry…. A photo in your window, in place of you in the window,
suggests that you are not fully present, unless there are such extenuating
circumstances as you might offer in advance of the session.
YOUR DRESS
The Zoom era has generated more jokes
about wearing pants (or more accurately, not wearing pants) than I’d care to
repeat, but how about the dress from the waist up. Have you been invited to a
Bat or Bar Mitzvah? A memorial service? A conference? That ceremony calls for
something other than pj’s or jeans and your old college sweatshirt. Skip the
high heels if you so like, but appearances in a visual medium matter. Consider
the circumstances and dress accordingly.
YOUR TECHNICAL TOYS
You are probably accustomed to the
television blaring in the next room, but the people in the Zoom Room trying to
hear one another are not. Turn off, or at least turn down, the volume of that
device. Your cell phone ought to be silenced as well and it’s best not to
answer during a Zoom session, unless you suspect an emergency. Finally, the
device on which you have connected to Zoom most likely offers you an
opportunity to multi-task—write that report, shop for new shoes, play solitaire.
etc. But everyone knows when you are distracted. Avoid multi-tasking, be
present, even though your presence is only a whisp of digits in cyberspace.
YOUR BACKGROUND
Zoom offers the tantalizing option,
through alternate backgrounds, of placing oneself in the jungles of Amazon, a
bustling rue in Paris, or outer space. We all like creativity so you may
indulge, as long as the background is appropriate for the session at hand. If
you are at a business meeting, you may not want to show up in the Sahara
Desert. Moreover, unless you are seated in front of a green screen of sorts,
your own apparition in the virtual background will become ghost-like, as your
face and body disappear and reappear with your own natural movements. It is
disturbing to interact with anyone who is missing a limb, a chest, or a head. A
mundane, real background, like your living room, is a far better choice.
YOUR CONVERSATIONS
Zoom offers the opportunity for private
conversation in Chat, an area running vertically on the right sign of the
screen where one may chat with the entire group or a single person. But what you
ought to avoid is calling out to Mrs. Goldberg about a personal health issue,
or any private issue for that matter, that would compel others to stop
speaking. Etiquette would demand that we not speak over one another, so when
you initiate a private conversation with that Mrs. Goldberg, you force others
to shut up or be as rude as you are in dominating the room. The chat area is
reserved for your private conversations. And that’s where they belong.
YOUR SPELLING
As long as we have given up on oral
communication in favor of the written word, if texting can be so described, it
is important for you to pay attention to spelling, so that your words are not
misconstrued. As one Zoomer wrote as he was trying to get his camera on,
“Please bare with me.” Thanks for the invite but I’ll pass. Moreover, please
don’t use CAPS which is the written equivalent of shouting. Whether spelling
out your name or tapping out a chat, write for maximum clarity, and that
includes following the conventions of the written word.
YOUR LANGUAGE
Is your mic on? It probably is which
means that the last expletive that fell from your lips was heard by the others
in the windows on your screen. Zoom can be frustrating for newcomers, but there
is no excuse for broadcasting that frustration via the @#$%^& words that
far too often pass for acceptable language. They aren’t. It is of some interest
to learn that Aunt Sadie can pull her own weight with the pirates flying the
Jolly Roger. But when those words are transmitted to the 50 other people in the
Zoom Room, what can I say but—ARRRGH!
You might ask me, with a great deal of
justified righteous indignation—Exactly who made you the Zoom Czar, the Cyber
Kaiser, the Internet Imperator? Okay—I
hear you. This is a self-appointed position perpetrated with a maximum of
hubris. But I bet I write for more than just a few who have been annoyed by one
or two of the above realities. The pandemic is not over yet. We have a longer
future of interactions in the Zoom Room than anyone ever thought. There’s a
deliberate equality in a Zoom Room where all the windows are of equal size.
There’s nothing wrong with striving to be unique or different, but if you do,
make sure you do so for all the right reasons, and not those that will make you
a Zoom Room Un-Sensation.
