I find it amusing how my brain takes time to get familiar with people I have seen virtually (in stills or action) the moment I see them face-to-face. It feels like the virtual representation of a person often mutes features that make them more human and personable.
I remember meeting a colleague I’ve only met and interacted with online through a class I enrolled in. I’d already created a person in my mind based on the online meetings we had and online profiles that when we finally met each other face-to-face, I realized how my mental picture had fallen short of so many details about him that I could definitely say meeting face-to-face still beats online interactions.
My brain took some recalibration to correct my mental image of him, accounting for other details that a photo and video wouldn’t be able to capture.
After that face-to-face meeting, I could say that we’ve become more familiar with each other in ways a virtual interaction cannot satisfy.
From This is why your brain remembers faces you see in person differently than from screens or photos:
“They found that media familiarization generates reliable familiarization representations, but not as strong as in-person familiarization,” said Acunzo. “It is a result that was to be expected, but it is nice to have.”
While the researchers didn’t investigate the impact of virtual interaction through applications like Zoom, Ambrus suspects from personal experience that it still wouldn’t equate to in-person interaction, something that became clear to him after teaching online during the pandemic.
“When I eventually met some of those students face-to-face, I was oftentimes quite surprised regarding the discrepancy between the ‘expectations’ in my mind and the real-world experience,” he said. “I wonder how many times we walk by people on the street who we know from online interactions but don’t recognize in person.”
jessa 