The Camera Dilemma: Should Visibility Be a Measure of Engagement? 🤔🎥

Good evening, readers!👋

How are you doing today?

Picture this. You are in a meeting with twelve people.
Eleven of them are black squares with a name in the corner.
One of them is a man whose face fills the screen, nodding every four seconds like a bobblehead on a dashboard.
Who is more engaged? Spoiler: the bobblehead is probably thinking about lunch.🍝

Somewhere along the way, managers decided that a face on screen equals a brain at work.
It is the same logic that once made us believe the person who stays latest at the office is the most productive.
Presenteeism did not die; it just got a webcam.💀
And let’s be honest about what the camera really measures.
It measures whether you own a decent ring light, whether your background is free of laundry, and whether your face can hold a convincing expression of interest for fifty minutes.
That is not engagement. That is acting.🎭
Now consider the person behind the black square.
Maybe they are an introvert who has already spent their social energy for the day.🔋
Maybe their home internet is held together by hope and a router from 2014.📡
Maybe their kid is doing a very loud interpretive dance behind them, or they are eating a sandwich with the dignity of a person who has been in back-to-back calls since nine.🥪
And maybe, just maybe, they have realised that staring at their own face on screen for hours is a bizarre form of modern torture.
Nobody in a physical meeting room ever sat in front of a mirror for the entire discussion.
Yet here we are, all quietly checking our own hair while someone explains the Q3 roadmap.💇

If you want to know whether someone is engaged, look at what they do.
Do they ask sharp questions?
Do they send the document before the deadline?
Do they remember the thing you said three weeks ago and connect it to today’s problem?🧠
The person with the camera off who delivers brilliant work is worth ten smiling faces who reply “let’s circle back” to everything.
Zoom fatigue is real, and research keeps pointing in the same direction: constant self-view and sustained eye contact on screen are draining.
Forcing cameras on can make people less present, not more.
The irony is delicious, because the rule meant to boost attention ends up burning it.🔥
So trade the camera rule for a trust rule.🤝
Be clear about when faces genuinely help, like a first meeting, a delicate conversation, or a team celebration, and let everything else breathe.
Judge people by outcomes and contribution, not by their pixels.
Treat adults like adults, which is a radical concept in some corners of corporate life.😏
The next time you notice a black square in your meeting, resist the urge to take it personally.
Do not assume rudeness, boredom, or a secret nap.😴
Ask yourself instead what you are really trying to measure, and whether a face can ever tell you that.

Try it this week: run one meeting with cameras optional, and watch what happens to the quality of the conversation.
Then tell your team and your boss what you found.🎥👇