We’ve all been there in the last year: trapped in the gaze of a webcam while a speaker drones on and on or addressing a class full of black boxes wondering whether anyone was at the other end. Our pandemic dependence on videoconferencing accentuated the unique pains and pleasures of interacting with our fellow humans mediated by technology.
Digital environments, like their physical counterparts, can offer great opportunities but, in order for them to be sustainable, we need a system to define and understand how different online interactions actually work. I call this system the Four Stages of Zoom Enlightenment.
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