ARE YOU A ZOOM ROOM UN-SENSATION?

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.