You join a video meeting, say hello and almost immediately touch your hair. Five minutes later, you smooth it again. You tuck one side behind your ear, check the top of your head in the little box on the screen and adjust a strand that suddenly seems out of place. Strangely, you may not do any of this while having the same conversation face-to-face. Psychology offers a compelling explanation. Video calls create an unusual combination of self-focused attention, appearance monitoring, impression management and mirror-like visual feedback. The habit of repeatedly touching your hair may therefore have less to do with the hair itself and more to do with something psychologically unusual about video communication: while talking to everyone else, you are also continuously watching yourself. Research shows that appearance self-consciousness during videoconferencing is associated with greater self-focused and appearance-focused attention.
