Zoom/Houseparty are actually painful

[professorbean]

Everyone talking over each other, glitchy connections, I've never craved physical interaction more

Aibu?

Zoom with a small group of close friends is fine.
Zoom with 20+ colleagues forced into social interaction in lockdown? Hideous. To be fair, I don't actually know how hideous as I didn't take part in that one.

I don’t mind family chats but I got stuck on one with work colleagues on Friday night.

Felt a bit stuck after a few hours of watching them get drunk so awkwardly pretended I couldn’t hear them, left and said my battery had died.

From now on I will just say no.

I hate it too. We do a WhatsApp group call with one particular group of friends and one acts as a 'leader' which is great as we go round in a circle talking about our week with just a bit of input from the others as we go so not much interrupting/awkward pauses but in another group of friends its every man for himself and it's much too chaotic and not fun at all.
Definitely depends on the group dynamics and how many of you there are.

Very envious of Zoom classrooms! We got a list of suggestions instead and no teacher interaction. Dd has been off a week and a half longer and enthusiasm for anything has gone subzero.

I had a great one-on-one Zoom but the more people the harder it is - I tried to be funny a couple of times on one with 12 people and ended up feeling like a prick because I suspect people only caught a word or two of it and it just sounded like I was talking over someone. It's hard to do if you are a joker in a group! Then there's the 40min limit and dodgy internet connection.

its hideous. What a world.

Zoom is good as it makes me get dressed and brush my hair. Today I even put some make up on to Zoom with friends

I do about 4 a week. A 'teams' with my own team that report to me and one with the directors' board. And I do one zoom on a Friday evening with a group of 6 other couples and another midweek with 6 girlfriends.

The friends ones last about 2 hours and the work ones are shorter.

I enjoy them and find them quite uplifting.

I found Zoom and WhatsApp video call better with smoother connections (you can only do up to 4 people on WhatsApp though I think).

I don’t mind them, when lockdown started everyone went a bit mad scheduling them every other day which was a bit intense - but now they’re here and there it’s ok. Last week was my friend’s birthday and she was by herself (her husband in the army and has been sent to help with pandemic logistics elsewhere in the country) so we had a ‘party’ for her on a video call. We all wore party hats and had a drink. It was nice, obviously not the same as an actual party but tied us over and meant my friend wasn’t alone on her birthday.

It definitely doesn’t have the same ‘natural’ element as an actual real life meeting but seeing faces helps I think, rather than just phone calls or messages. Also something I found helpful was hiding my own face on Zoom, I think I speak more naturally when I can’t see myself - it’s more reminiscent of what a conversation would be like in real life when you can’t see your self looking back at you!

That's a good tip about hiding yourself! It is unnerving seeing what I look like when I talk.

We had an amazing night last night. Four hours of games on house party with our grown up kids.

Absolutely hilarious.

Played guess who with granddaughter on it today.

Obviously not the same as being together but a pretty good solution

@professorbean absolutely, I think you can be distracted seeing yourself and maybe be aware of what you look like - which also defeats the object as you want to be looking at the people you’re talking to! - so hiding yourself means you speak a bit more freely without that distraction and concentrate on everyone else.

I have just come out of a zoom family quiz.

3 hours

Was tiresome

Thank god it’s not just me.

I don't do them. Video calls for work are bad enough. It's no substitute for normal human interaction and makes me feel more isolated if anything

Sometimes it’s better than others. I find wine helps.

*I don't do them. Video calls for work are bad enough. It's no substitute for normal human interaction and makes me feel more isolated if anything
*
I think that's the thing! It just makes me miss natural human interaction more. A good phone call is better tbh.

Fucking hate them.

Have back to back teams video calls for work.

Last thing I want it zoom/ fricking Houseparty with friends. I'd rather call them.

House party seems to want on phone numbers and accessing contacts if you let it. Makes me shudder. Really really don't want to use it.

I am super anti social though and MH issues make me want to hide in a hole mostly.

I can't stand all that talking over one another and having an online presence etc. I am usually very anti WhatsApp but I'm tolerating it for now

I'm as social as they come
Out most weekends.
I cannot bear it. Everyone talking or no one talking. Avoid it all the time now.

I love seeing people’s faces mid freeze and hearing only half the spiel, most people need to skip to the end of their sentences, Zoom does it for me 👍🏼

I'm enjoying them for the most part. But I'm quick to call time rather than letting them drag on!

Me and do did a zoom tonight for the first time with our hobby group. There was about 8 of us, we did a quiz which was successful but the unstructured free for all talking i didnt like. Every one talking over each other and and leggy.. no ta

Ffs laggy not leggy

My mum seems to talk over everyone 🤦🏻‍♀️.
We play family quizzes on there but everyone except the person reading the quiz questions has to mute their mic. They can only unmute at the end or when they need to ask for the question to be read out again

We had a brunch over Zoom yesterday - we rated each person’s food then did a quiz, it was fun!

I think they're a laugh. Better than nothing, keeping me sane.