Date of Publication:
February 15, 2021
In a typical class or meeting on Zoom, what percentage of the time are you looking at yourself versus at others? Personally, I’m a bit smitten with my continuous selfie. But all that glancing and micro-adjusting my hair and posing is … tiresome.
Enter Zoom’s brilliant menu option Hide Self View (aka Hide Myself), available when you right-click over your own frame or click on the three dots in the upper right corner. While you’ll no longer see yourself, others will still see you on their screens. When you experiment with this, I invite you to notice 1. that the quantity of attention you (mostly unconsciously) allocated to tracking yourself is now given to others. Do you listen more carefully? What is the impact of this increased attunement in terms of the nuance, empathy, and consideration you bring to your responses? And, 2. when your image frame is removed, the images of others expand automatically to fill the screen. How does this increased visibility impact your ability to perceive others more fully? To notice the subtleties of facial expressions, (upper) body language, and the environments others are situated in?
One of the aims of faith traditions, and certainly of Buddhism, is to help us learn that real happiness doesn’t come from pursuing the fulfillment of self-serving ambitions and desires. Rather, the wise counsel that it is in caring for others, in pursuing a noble aim larger than oneself, and in being in community that we find enduring contentment. Zoom’s Hide Self View can serve as a spiritual practice that shifts us from a preoccupation of oneself toward being more fully present with others, facilitating connection, meaning, and joy.