I notice it most on Zoom calls. That split-second flicker across someone's face before they compose themselves. A micro-flinch when their phone buzzes during a conversation. The way their eyes dart to another screen when they think I can't tell.
These tiny moments reveal more than words ever could.
Once, during a team huddle, a teammate’s camera froze just as our manager asked about how an important deal was going. When he returned, his voice, pitched slightly higher than before said "Sorry about that, my internet's been spotty all day." But his perfectly stable connection for the previous 40 minutes said otherwise.
Was it deliberate? Did he need those extra seconds to formulate an answer? Or was it a genuine technical difficulty that just happened at the right moment?
I observe and note these situations more often than I care to admit. Not to judge, but because it’s fascinating.
And if I recognize it in others, it’s only because I’ve done the same. I too have muted myself to sigh deeply, turned off my camera to check my phone, or sent a private message to a colleague while nodding at whatever’s being presented. These digital masks we’ve created both reveal and conceal us, molding the way we operate in these spaces.
What does it mean that we've developed these new forms of hiding in plain sight?
The text message typing indicator might be the most anxiety inducing symbol of our time. Those three bouncing dots that appear when someone is typing, then disappear, then reappear… What happened in between? Did they delete everything and start over? Did they decide not to respond at all? The ellipsis holds the potential energy of communication without delivering it.
I watched those dots appear and vanish a few times the other night when I asked my coworker how they felt now that they had a new job and were leaving. When the message finally arrived, it was just "I feel fine". Those three words, scrubbed clean of whatever raw emotion had been typed and deleted multiple times.
What lives in the space between what we almost say and what we actually send?
Voice notes, my personal favorite, have their own special kind of intimacy. The background noises that can be heard (dishes clattering, a dog barking, wind against the microphone) add a rich contextual soundscape that let’s me piece together their moment in reality from audio bits.
My coworker sends voice messages while driving to work early in the morning. I hear the low hum of the highway, the faint click of a turn signal, or the brief pause to say their order at the Starbucks drive-thru. These little sounds add a warmth and depth to our digital conversations that a polished text message could never.
But, even voice notes have their performances. The shift into a more polished tone when recording, or that self-conscious feeling that creeps in when we know we're being recorded.
Do we ever truly communicate, at least digitally, without performing in some way?
Another favorite of mine is Slack or MS Teams, platforms that have created their own strange behavioral ecosystems. The green "active" dot, signaling availability and attentiveness. It's absurd when you think about it, the idea that a tiny green circle can carry such expectation. I've experienced first hand colleagues apologize sincerely for taking five minutes to reply to a message, as if this brief delay were a cardinal sin.
I catch myself doing the same thing, feeling guilty for stepping away from my desk without updating my status as “away” or feeling irrationally annoyed when someone doesn't respond to my urgent message, only to remember they're in a meeting I'm supposed to be in too… oops.
Being unavailable feels (to me at least) like such a transgression. It's weird to notice always being available has become a sort of proof of my reliability / character. What does it mean about me? About us?
And then there's the sheer absurdity of choosing the right reaction emoji in Slack or Teams. It's genuinely hilarious how much emotional energy goes into selecting just the right cartoon icon to respond to someone's message. I remember last week when my coworker announced they'd finally finished a challenging task they'd been struggling with for days. I hovered over the reactions looking and thinking… thumbs up felt dismissive, but applause seemed like i’m mocking them, and the heart just didn’t make sense… Perhaps party popper? Nah, too celebratory for something routine.
30 seconds into searching desperately for something nuanced enough to communicate what I felt (a blend of acknowledgment and genuine appreciation) I caved, worrying about taking too long to react at all, and picked the simple thumbs up… then immediately regretted it.
Why does choosing an emoji feel like making a moral judgment call? How did we get here?
The most fascinating behaviors are in the states between digital and physical presence. The colleague who's assertive and opinionated in Slack but barely speaks in video meetings. The friend whose text messages are short and rare but whose voice notes ramble on with vulnerability and nonsense. There are so many different versions of ourselves that exist across different platforms.
I wonder if we're more authentic in some spaces than others, or if authenticity itself is just another performance we've learned to calibrate for different audiences.
I catch myself in these digital behaviors typing, deleting, and retyping a message to strike just the right tone, or feeling that bit of anxiety when a call runs long and overlaps with another commitment, forcing me to be the asshole that has to end the call. I'm both the observer and the observed in these situations and it’s so funny.
What parts of ourselves are we losing in these translated interactions? What new forms of connection are we gaining?
The pandemic thrusted us into these digital spaces faster than we wanted, but we were already heading there. Now we exist in this liminal place between physical and virtual presence, developing new social norms and signals as we go. The slight nod to indicate you're listening on a video call. The reaction emoji that fills in for a laugh or a frown. The carefully chosen profile picture that represents you in your absence.
I find it fascinating honestly… this evolution of human connection into something more mediated and more controlled, but no less real.
Maybe the most human thing about our digital interactions is how imperfectly we manage them. The accidental reply-alls. The unmuted comments meant to be private. The video calls we rush into late, frazzled and unprepared. In these moments of digital failure, our humanity shows itself most clearly.
I don’t know if we’re becoming more connected or more isolated—maybe both at once. But I do know that in this new world of half-presence, we’re inventing languages of here and there, of attention and distraction, spoken not with words, but with read receipts, typing indicators, and the hesitation before hitting send.
I notice it most on Zoom calls. That split-second flicker across someone's face before they compose themselves. A micro-flinch when their phone buzzes during a conversation. The way their eyes dart to another screen when they think I can't tell.
These tiny moments reveal more than words ever could.
Once, during a team huddle, a teammate’s camera froze just as our manager asked about how an important deal was going. When he returned, his voice, pitched slightly higher than before said "Sorry about that, my internet's been spotty all day." But his perfectly stable connection for the previous 40 minutes said otherwise.
Was it deliberate? Did he need those extra seconds to formulate an answer? Or was it a genuine technical difficulty that just happened at the right moment?
I observe and note these situations more often than I care to admit. Not to judge, but because it’s fascinating.
And if I recognize it in others, it’s only because I’ve done the same. I too have muted myself to sigh deeply, turned off my camera to check my phone, or sent a private message to a colleague while nodding at whatever’s being presented. These digital masks we’ve created both reveal and conceal us, molding the way we operate in these spaces.
What does it mean that we've developed these new forms of hiding in plain sight?
The text message typing indicator might be the most anxiety inducing symbol of our time. Those three bouncing dots that appear when someone is typing, then disappear, then reappear… What happened in between? Did they delete everything and start over? Did they decide not to respond at all? The ellipsis holds the potential energy of communication without delivering it.
I watched those dots appear and vanish a few times the other night when I asked my coworker how they felt now that they had a new job and were leaving. When the message finally arrived, it was just "I feel fine". Those three words, scrubbed clean of whatever raw emotion had been typed and deleted multiple times.
What lives in the space between what we almost say and what we actually send?
Voice notes, my personal favorite, have their own special kind of intimacy. The background noises that can be heard (dishes clattering, a dog barking, wind against the microphone) add a rich contextual soundscape that let’s me piece together their moment in reality from audio bits.
My coworker sends voice messages while driving to work early in the morning. I hear the low hum of the highway, the faint click of a turn signal, or the brief pause to say their order at the Starbucks drive-thru. These little sounds add a warmth and depth to our digital conversations that a polished text message could never.
But, even voice notes have their performances. The shift into a more polished tone when recording, or that self-conscious feeling that creeps in when we know we're being recorded.
Do we ever truly communicate, at least digitally, without performing in some way?
Another favorite of mine is Slack or MS Teams, platforms that have created their own strange behavioral ecosystems. The green "active" dot, signaling availability and attentiveness. It's absurd when you think about it, the idea that a tiny green circle can carry such expectation. I've experienced first hand colleagues apologize sincerely for taking five minutes to reply to a message, as if this brief delay were a cardinal sin.
I catch myself doing the same thing, feeling guilty for stepping away from my desk without updating my status as “away” or feeling irrationally annoyed when someone doesn't respond to my urgent message, only to remember they're in a meeting I'm supposed to be in too… oops.
Being unavailable feels (to me at least) like such a transgression. It's weird to notice always being available has become a sort of proof of my reliability / character. What does it mean about me? About us?
And then there's the sheer absurdity of choosing the right reaction emoji in Slack or Teams. It's genuinely hilarious how much emotional energy goes into selecting just the right cartoon icon to respond to someone's message. I remember last week when my coworker announced they'd finally finished a challenging task they'd been struggling with for days. I hovered over the reactions looking and thinking… thumbs up felt dismissive, but applause seemed like i’m mocking them, and the heart just didn’t make sense… Perhaps party popper? Nah, too celebratory for something routine.
30 seconds into searching desperately for something nuanced enough to communicate what I felt (a blend of acknowledgment and genuine appreciation) I caved, worrying about taking too long to react at all, and picked the simple thumbs up… then immediately regretted it.
Why does choosing an emoji feel like making a moral judgment call? How did we get here?
The most fascinating behaviors are in the states between digital and physical presence. The colleague who's assertive and opinionated in Slack but barely speaks in video meetings. The friend whose text messages are short and rare but whose voice notes ramble on with vulnerability and nonsense. There are so many different versions of ourselves that exist across different platforms.
I wonder if we're more authentic in some spaces than others, or if authenticity itself is just another performance we've learned to calibrate for different audiences.
I catch myself in these digital behaviors typing, deleting, and retyping a message to strike just the right tone, or feeling that bit of anxiety when a call runs long and overlaps with another commitment, forcing me to be the asshole that has to end the call. I'm both the observer and the observed in these situations and it’s so funny.
What parts of ourselves are we losing in these translated interactions? What new forms of connection are we gaining?
The pandemic thrusted us into these digital spaces faster than we wanted, but we were already heading there. Now we exist in this liminal place between physical and virtual presence, developing new social norms and signals as we go. The slight nod to indicate you're listening on a video call. The reaction emoji that fills in for a laugh or a frown. The carefully chosen profile picture that represents you in your absence.
I find it fascinating honestly… this evolution of human connection into something more mediated and more controlled, but no less real.
Maybe the most human thing about our digital interactions is how imperfectly we manage them. The accidental reply-alls. The unmuted comments meant to be private. The video calls we rush into late, frazzled and unprepared. In these moments of digital failure, our humanity shows itself most clearly.
I don’t know if we’re becoming more connected or more isolated—maybe both at once. But I do know that in this new world of half-presence, we’re inventing languages of here and there, of attention and distraction, spoken not with words, but with read receipts, typing indicators, and the hesitation before hitting send.
Curious thoughts
Curious thoughts
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