Body Language in the Digital Environment

Posted on September 03, 2021 by Tom Moore, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the often poorly cited and used out-of-context communication research of Albert Mehrabian. The result of two 1967 studies by Mehrabian et al. spawned the popular “7%-38%-55% Rule”. The rule goes like this, in finding meaning in a communicated message, a receiver relies 7% on the actual words said, 38% on para lingual cues, and 55% on facial and body signals.

Even though there is plenty of criticism about the rule and even Mehrabian’s original research, the oft-cited rule has become a mainstay in popular training on communication. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that any such training will include a session on body language (e.g., crossing your arms during a conversion means you’re either uncomfortable or offended), which is the focus of my post.

So, just how important is body language in digital communication? I think this is an essential question because much of our communication today is sans body. If we play the numbers game as the rule suggests, we can infer that most of our ability to communicate well is lost. However, I’m not so sure. Consider how much of our communication is via email, text, IM, phone, and platforms such as Zoom and MS Teams. It’s hard to believe that we lose most of our ability to communicate clearly by going digital.

Clearly, when keying out a text or email, your body language has little effect on the receiver’s ability to understand your message. I guess the receiver can assume your arms are not crossed, or you wouldn’t have been able to type the message. I think it’s safe to say that the same holds for phone conversations as well. That said, in her recent book, Digital Body Language, Erica Dhawan writes about what she calls “digital body language.” She defines digital body language as one’s approach to understanding the signs in digital communication just as one interprets the signals within non-digital communication.

For my purpose, though, I want to talk about the body language you might experience, say, in a Zoom meeting. The human brain seems to have several specialized areas for processing socially relevant information like body and facial expressions. These include visual areas, of course, but also emotion-related subcortical and cortical areas. These areas seem to work best when the whole body of the communicator is observable by the receiver of a message. Herein lies one of the challenges of virtual meetings. If you’re lucky, everyone has their camera on, and often, at best, you get a collection of 2″ × 2″ video headshots of the participants. Not a lot to work with. So, how can you improve your ability to communicate in such meetings within the constraints we often experience. Here are some tips:

• Use your camera. If you are in a virtual meeting and your camera is off, you’re not
participating.
• Ensure you are centered in your camera’s field of view, and you have two to three feet
between you and the camera lens so people can see your gestures. Body language expert,
Vanessa Van Edwards found that the most viewed TED Talks come from speakers who
actively use hand gestures.
• Make sure your background is not more interesting than you are.
• Make sure the primary light source in the camera space is behind the camera and not behind
you.
• Practice good posture. Maintaining proper posture is a fundamental part of crafting a more
refined presence in a virtual setting. Remember, even when you are not speaking, people are
looking at you.
• Don’t be a stone. A virtual meeting is more than simply being present and speaking in turn.
Something as small as a nod, smiling, leaning forward, or withdrawing and leaning back
relays powerful information about your internal feelings.
• Slow down the conversation. There is an inherent lag in online meetings. Leave space for it.
• Don’t be a dead fish. Maintain eye contact, but remember to blink and move your eyes away
from the camera periodically.
• Try mirroring the speaker’s body position.

I feel much more can and probably should be said about the importance of body language in virtual meetings. Whether we buy into the urban myth of the 7%-38%-55% Rule or not, it’s clear that body language plays a big part in your ability to communicate well in a digital environment. We live in a world where we all seem to be moving apart, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stay connected and communicate effectively.