Virtual interactions are tied to screens. That's their weak point, because screens affect our vision, how we move and focus our eyes. Our eyes are the only part of our brain exposed to light and air. It turns out that how we move and focus them affects the rest of brain function. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, has researched and spoken about this deeply and at length. Here are three podcast episodes where he dives in: [link] [link] ▶ this video I think all three points in these comments can be right: 1) we need alone time; 2) sharing physical space can help creativity; 3) virtual meetings can hurt it. But we have to isolate the variables. Shared physical space for creative sessions doesn't have to mean open offices, and it doesn't have to mean eliminating solitude. We should also allow for different people responding differently to virtual meetings, shared space, etc, and remember to consider this statistically, as the scientists do. That is, we should try to segment the subjects of the study. Some will prefer screens more, some shared space. The tech industry remains willfully and obtusely ignorant of the costs of virtualizing human interaction, because people sitting in a room together don't need much software, and nobody's going to build a unicorn on that. As with long covid, the true and persistent costs of these changes -- virtualizing everything -- will only become apparent in the years to come.
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