Why You Can't Make Eye Contact on Video Calls (and How to Fix It)

The short answer: you can't make eye contact on a video call because your webcam sits above your screen, while the face you're looking at sits in the middle of it. Look at the person and you appear to look down. Look at the webcam and you can't see them. You can shrink the gap with your setup, hide it with software that redraws your eyes, or remove it by moving the lens into the middle of the screen with the More Connection Cam.

At some point someone has told you to "just look at the camera" on video calls.

Great advice. Now try listening to a person, reading their face and working out whether your joke landed, while staring at a black dot the size of a lentil.

If your eyes never seem to line up with the other person's on video calls, blame geometry.

Why your eyes don't line up

1. Your webcam sits above your screen.
2. The face of the person you're talking to sits in the middle of your screen.
3. Those are two different places to look. So you can look at them, or appear to look at them, never both.
4. Everybody on the video call is doing this, and none of them can tell.

Nobody chose this. The webcam went above the screen on the first laptops, and every video call since has inherited the decision.

The lesson: the problem lives in where the camera is, so the fixes all come down to moving the camera, moving the face, or faking the eyes.

Does it really matter?

More than people think. Stanford's Jeremy Bailenson, who studies video calls, points out that a video call gives you a strange version of eye contact: big faces, close up, looking roughly at you, all the time. It's intense and slightly off at once.

And real eye contact does something measurable. A 2022 study led by Caroline Di Bernardi Luft found that eye contact raised the synchrony between two people's brain activity, more so between friends than strangers. We've tested whether that can happen over a video call too. In a preliminary lab study at Brunel University London, which has not been peer reviewed, pairs who made eye contact through More Connection Cam prototypes showed brainwave synchronisation that did not appear with a normal webcam setup. It's one study, with prototypes, so treat it as a promising sign and nothing more yet.

The lesson: eye contact is one of the signals people use to feel each other's attention, and a standard webcam setup throws it away.

Fix 1: change your setup (free)

• Move their video window to the top of your screen, right under the webcam. The smaller the distance between their eyes and the lens, the smaller the angle.
• Sit further back. At arm's length the gap is smaller than when you lean in.
• Raise the camera to eye level. A laptop on a stack of books stops the camera looking up your nose, which helps even when it doesn't fix your eyes.
• Look at the lens for the moments that count. The key point in a pitch, the answer to an interview question, "I love you". Then go back to their face.

This helps. The camera is still above the screen, so it never fully works.

Fix 2: software that redraws your eyes

Apple's FaceTime Eye Contact setting on iPhone and iPad, NVIDIA Broadcast and Windows Studio Effects all offer a version. They find your eyes in the video and redraw them so you appear to look at the camera.

It's free if your device supports it, and for a webinar where you're reading notes it can be handy.

The trade-off is that it runs the whole time, including when you look away to think. Looking away to find a word and coming back is a signal. It's how the other person knows you're working on what they just said. When software holds your gaze on them permanently, that signal goes.

You should be allowed to look away.

Fix 3: move the lens into the middle of the screen

This is what teleprompters have done for newsreaders for decades, and it's what the More Connection Cam does for a laptop or monitor.

It's a foldable hood that hooks over the top of your screen. Inside, an angled two-way mirror lets about 85% of the light through, so you still see the screen clearly. Your phone lies in the base with its main camera facing up, and the mirror puts the lens in the middle of the screen, right where the other person's face is.

Your phone becomes the webcam: Continuity Camera on a Mac with an iPhone, or a free app such as Camo or DroidCam for other phones and Windows. It works with any video call app that lets you choose a camera, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and FaceTime. No software touches your face.

With one Cam, the person on the other end sees you looking at them. When both of you have one, you look each other in the eye.

Who it isn't for

• People who video call mainly on their phone. It needs a laptop or monitor screen at least 30.5 cm (12 in) wide, with a top edge up to 3.6 cm (1.4 in) thick.
• People who want plug-in-and-go. It uses your phone as the webcam, so there's some setting up the first time. A setup video covers every phone and computer combination.
• People with very large phones who need the camera dead centre. Every phone fits the strap, but depending on its size, the camera may sit slightly to one side of the camera slot.

It costs £45, or £80 for two, ships worldwide, and comes with 30-day returns.

The point

"Look at the camera" was always a workaround for a camera in the wrong place. Put the camera where the face is, and you can just look at the person.

Quick questions

Why do I look like I'm looking down on video calls? Because you're looking at the screen and the webcam is above it. The other person sees your eyes pointed below theirs.

Does eye contact software fix it? It makes you appear to look at the camera by redrawing your eyes. It runs all the time, so it also hides when you look away.

Do both people need a More Connection Cam? No, but it helps. With one, the other person sees you looking at them. With two, you see each other looking.

Sources

• Bailenson, J. N. (2021). Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue. Technology, Mind, and Behavior.
• Luft, C. D. B., et al. (2022). Social synchronization of brain activity increases during eye-contact. Communications Biology, 5.
• Brunel University London EEG study with More Connection Cam prototypes: preliminary and not peer reviewed.