Mute-by-default is why your video calls suck
July 19, 2025
At my previous job we had a meeting every morning where we'd join a video chat and spend 15 minutes discussing what we worked on yesterday, what we'll work on today, and anything blocking progress. I thought it was particularly useless because most of the time nobody had anything additional to say, and we would seemingly waste 15 minutes half-listening to each other (plus the time context switching in and out of meeting mode). If someone did have something to say, they were usually cut short because nobody likes a long stand-up.
An empirical discovery
One time we held the meeting in-person. It was the same meeting—we all took turns going over the very same points—and yet it was different. Instead of feeling like a contrived exercise, there was a lot more back-and-forth discussion, and someone's issue was resolved on the spot. This was a very subtle difference, and I hadn't made this realization until I thought about it months later.
I've heard the idea that much of our communication is via body language, and that the lack of these non-verbal cues is why video calls are tiring and ineffective. I don't buy it. I've been in traditional phone calls and calls playing video games for hours at a time without fatigue. What really made my team's stand-up meeting suck was that it was mute-by-default (normally you are muted, and you only unmute when it's your turn, or when asking a question after someone completes their turn).
If you pay attention to conversations around you, you'll notice that there's actually a lot of interruption. In theory, interrupting someone is rude, but in practice, a good conversation is one that is dynamic—the feedback loop is tight, interruptions are frequent, and actually increase the rate of information transfer. Mute-by-default prevents all of this. You have to consciously remember if you are muted or unmuted, and your sudden urge to speak must first be redirected to finding the unmute button. When we held our meeting in-person, this overhead was eliminated and people chimed in when they wanted (I'd still argue the meeting was unnecessary).
I've also seen the dynamics play out in class. In a normal college class I could expect other students to ask a good amount of questions, or blurt out corrections to the professor's math mistakes on the board. In my virtual classes (or normal classes that go virtual for a session) participation would always be nonexistent, and professors had to effectively torture us to get interaction. It's often a subconscious choice, but the added friction of having to unmute your mic (and remembering to mute it after) makes not talking so much more appealing.
The solution
If I had a company or led a team, I'd implement an unmute-by-default policy. Unless you're doing something like a formal presentation (which is mute-by-default in real life), everyone should be unmuted. If this seems like a chore because only one person needs to talk at a time while everyone else listens, reconsider whether the meeting has to exist in the first place. If employees are in a loud, open-office environment, consider changing the environment. Good communication is necessary for good work, and should not be compromised (wasn't one of the "benefits" of an open-office plan better communication anyway?).
Why's it like this?
It's also important to address why mute-by-default is the norm. In addition to loud environments, there's a technological issue: latency. You know those TV field reporters that respond after 5 seconds on the news? Imagine them trying to have a back-and-forth conversation with the station. It would be impossible. To cope with this, news stations implement mute-by-default. You don't say anything unless you're absolutely sure the person on the other end is done talking. We do the same thing. It's not as obvious, but voice calls with high latency always feel a little awkward. There are lots of little moments where people begin talking over each other without realizing. But why cope when we don't have to?
Obviously the speed of light is a limiting factor, but if you asked me to guess the priorities of corporate/school voice call offerings (think Zoom and Teams), I don't think latency is at the top of the list. Certainly it is below throughput. That's one of the reasons why mute-by-default is so common on these platforms. On the other hand, communication software for gaming (think TeamSpeak) is expressly designed for low latency ("behind you!"), and I don't hear gamers complaining about how voice chat is tiring or ineffective.
Maybe we should just use phone lines.
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