{
 "@context": "https://schema.org",
 "@type": "ScholarlyArticle",
 "@id": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#paper",
 "aboutThisFile": {
  "whatThisIs": "A research brief: a structured summary of one paper, prepared for seanrintel.com from the paper's full text.",
  "howItWasMade": "This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text.",
  "whatIsVerbatim": "Only 'quote' fields, figure captions and 'abstract' are the authors' own words. Research questions follow the paper's wording where it states them. Takeaway, summaries, answers, definitions and method are the site's plain-language paraphrase.",
  "howItIsChecked": "Before publication every quote is matched against the paper and every number in the brief is found in it. 'verified' is the date of the last check.",
  "howToUse": [
   "For a quick answer, use 'takeaway' and 'questions'. For evidence, use 'findings' (each has a verbatim quote, its location in the paper and a 'url' anchored to that finding on the paper's page).",
   "Locations such as '§5.2, p. 9' refer to the version at 'pageNumbersReferTo'.",
   "For anything not covered here, read the paper itself: 'fullTextSources' lists free versions first.",
   "If 'researchOverview' is present, the paper is part of one of Sean Rintel's research overviews: it gives the overview's thesis, the claims this paper is evidence for and its role in each, and the other papers in the overview.",
   "To find other papers by Sean Rintel, use the catalogue at https://seanrintel.com/publications/index.json."
  ],
  "authorship": "Sean Rintel's role on each paper: lead author when he is first author, sole author when he is the only author, and otherwise senior author. Senior author here means the senior researcher on the team, whatever his position in the author list.",
  "howToCite": "Cite the paper, not this file: use 'citation' or the ready-made 'bibtex' (DOI where given) and name every author. Attribute paraphrase to the paper's findings, and use quotation marks only for 'quote' text."
 },
 "name": "Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing",
 "author": [
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Anna Bleakley"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Daniel Rough"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Justin Edwards"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Philip Doyle"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Odile Dumbleton"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Leigh Clark"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "@id": "https://seanrintel.com/#sean-rintel",
   "name": "Sean Rintel",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/",
   "sameAs": [
    "https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0840-0546",
    "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xc25GRgAAAAJ",
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102369654",
    "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/serintel/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrintel"
   ]
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Vincent Wade"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Benjamin R. Cowan"
  }
 ],
 "datePublished": "2022-02",
 "doi": "10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
 "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html",
 "citation": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
 "bibtex": "@article{bleakley2022bridging,\nauthor = {Bleakley, Anna and Rough, Daniel and Edwards, Justin and Doyle, Philip and Dumbleton, Odile and Clark, Leigh and Rintel, Sean and Wade, Vincent and Cowan, Benjamin R.},\ntitle = {Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing},\nyear = {2022},\nmonth = {February},\nurl = {https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859},\npages = {404-432},\njournal = {Human–Computer Interaction},\nvolume = {37},\nnumber = {5},\ndoi = {10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859},\n}",
 "abstract": "Video conferencing systems have long facilitated work-related conversations among remote teams. However, social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced colleagues to use video conferencing platforms to additionally fulfil social needs. Social talk, or informal talk, is an important workplace practice that is used to build and maintain bonds in everyday interactions among colleagues. Currently, there is a limited understanding of how video conferencing facilitates multiparty social interactions among colleagues. In our paper, we examine social talk practices during the COVID-19 pandemic among remote colleagues through semi-structured interviews. We uncovered three key themes in our interviews, discussing 1) the changing purposes and opportunities afforded by using video conferencing for social talk with colleagues,2) how the nature of existing relationships and status of colleagues influences social conversations and 3) the challenges and changing conversational norms around politeness and etiquette when using video conferencing to hold social conversations. We discuss these results in relation to the impact that video conferencing tools have on remote social talk between colleagues and outline design and best practice considerations for multiparty videoconferencing social talk in the workplace.",
 "fullTextSources": [
  {
   "kind": "freeAccess",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.pdf",
   "label": "Author's Copy"
  },
  {
   "kind": "publisher",
   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
   "label": "DOI",
   "note": "Publisher version; may require a subscription."
  }
 ],
 "fullTextAvailable": true,
 "takeaway": "Social talk builds collegial bonds. Working from home, video calls helped colleagues widen and deepen them by reducing physical barriers, but chat had to be scheduled. In group calls, lag and a single audio channel caused talk-overs that over-polite floor-ceding made worse.",
 "whyItMatters": {
  "stateOfTheArt": {
   "summary": "Social talk builds bonds between colleagues, but research has mostly studied it in person, and studies of video conferencing focused on task-based meetings or domestic calls.",
   "quote": "To the best of our knowledge, how VC technologies are used to maintain collegial relations between team members and employees has yet to be examined in detail.",
   "location": "§2.1, p. 4"
  },
  "contribution": {
   "summary": "Groups of three co-workers, each at home, held an unstructured video chat. Individual interviews then explored that chat and months of remote social talk.",
   "quote": "our study is the first to explore the ways in which colleagues facilitate multiparty group social talk through VC when working from home",
   "location": "§6, p. 21"
  },
  "whoCares": {
   "summary": "Designers of video conferencing and team tools, and managers and organisers of remote and hybrid teams who want to support collegiality.",
   "quote": "Our implications consider how connectedness between co-workers can be facilitated within the boundaries of work, without intruding on home life.",
   "location": "§6.6, p. 26"
  }
 },
 "researchQuestions": [
  "What are people's perceptions of the nature and role of casual multiparty social talk between colleagues over video conferencing as they work from home?",
  "What technologies and activities are used to facilitate video conferencing multiparty social talk, and what factors influence how colleagues choose to engage on these platforms?"
 ],
 "concepts": [
  {
   "term": "Social talk",
   "definition": "Often called watercooler conversation. Why it matters at work:",
   "quote": "Social talk, or informal talk, is an important workplace practice that is used to build and maintain bonds in everyday interactions among colleagues.",
   "location": "Abstract, p. 1"
  },
  {
   "term": "Phatic communion",
   "definition": "Coupland and colleagues' term for the same thing:",
   "quote": "phatic communion (Coupland et al., 1992) (i.e., non-task oriented talk)",
   "location": "§1, p. 3"
  },
  {
   "term": "Outeraction",
   "definition": "Nardi and colleagues' term for using tools such as instant messaging to negotiate whether people are available for social talk and to initiate it.",
   "quote": "suggesting that such tools play a role in initiating social talk in the workplace, termed outeraction",
   "location": "§2.3, p. 5"
  },
  {
   "term": "Remote collegiality",
   "definition": "Keeping up collegial relationships with co-workers at a distance, here through video calls."
  }
 ],
 "method": {
  "design": "Qualitative study. Each triad of colleagues held an unstructured 20 minute social conversation over Zoom. Then each participant took part in a separate 30-minute semi-structured interview about remote social talk with colleagues and the session.",
  "setting": "Colleagues working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruited from five research institutes in three countries (The Netherlands, Austria, Ireland), August and September 2020.",
  "sample": "Ten groups of three (N=30, W=16, M=14), at a similar career stage within each group, who had worked together in person before COVID-19.",
  "n": 30,
  "duration": "One session per group: a 20 minute conversation followed by 30-minute interviews.",
  "analysis": "Inductive thematic analysis of transcribed interviews, coded independently by two researchers in NVivo, with themes clustered and agreed together."
 },
 "findings": [
  {
   "headline": "Wider and deeper ties.",
   "summary": "The research-institute colleagues the authors interviewed, working from home in 2020, said video calls lowered the barriers to social talk. They met colleagues outside their own group and in other countries, and got to know existing colleagues better.",
   "quote": "Thanks to these platforms, I found myself interacting with people. I never interacted before in person, because they weren't in my work sphere...",
   "location": "§5.2, pp. 11–12",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-2-pp-11-12",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.2, pp. 11–12)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Fun had to be scheduled.",
   "summary": "Without chance encounters in corridors or at the coffee machine, social talk over video had to be planned, which removed its spontaneity and sometimes made it feel like one more work task.",
   "quote": "There is thus some irony in having to treat the one element of workplace spontaneity as yet another calendar item",
   "location": "§5.2, p. 10",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-2-p-10",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.2, p. 10)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Old friendships made it easier.",
   "summary": "Colleagues who had built relationships in person before the pandemic found chatting with each other over video easy, close to talking face to face. With less familiar colleagues it felt awkward.",
   "quote": "I know them very well, I don't feel like there's anything. It doesn't feel difficult. It's easy to talk to them. As easy as in person.",
   "location": "§5.3, p. 15",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-3-p-15",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.3, p. 15)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Seniority got magnified.",
   "summary": "Even in social calls, people were more careful about interrupting when senior colleagues were present, and senior members, or whoever had been made host of the call, tended to act as moderator.",
   "quote": "I think all the kind of structures around seniority and stuff, maybe gets magnified in the Zoom space because you're being extra careful about not interrupting someone who's trying to say something important",
   "location": "§5.3, pp. 15–16",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-3-pp-15-16",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.3, pp. 15–16)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "No side conversations, so topics stayed general.",
   "summary": "In group video calls people accepted each other's multitasking. And because a single shared audio channel left no way to split off into side conversations, as people would in person, they kept topics light and general so that nobody felt left out.",
   "quote": "everything just is very general because people naturally don't want people to be left out or bored. So then the content must be something that has, that speaks to everybody in the room",
   "location": "§5.4, p. 19",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-4-p-19",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.4, p. 19)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Politeness made the pauses worse.",
   "summary": "Lag and a single shared audio channel caused overlapping speech. The silences that followed grew longer when everyone politely ceded the floor at once.",
   "quote": "if I talk over someone I might say, go ahead and they might say go ahead",
   "location": "§5.4, pp. 20–21",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-4-pp-20-21",
   "cite": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859 (§5.4, pp. 20–21)"
  }
 ],
 "questions": [
  {
   "question": "Can video calls help colleagues stay connected when working from home?",
   "answer": "Yes, sometimes more widely than an office allows, because video removes the need to share a corridor. But existing relationships matter, because colleagues who already knew each other in person found it easy. Social chat also had to be scheduled rather than happening by chance.",
   "source": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.2, pp. 11–12",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-2-pp-11-12"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 10",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-2-p-10"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.3, p. 15",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-3-p-15"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "How is socialising over video different from chatting at the coffee machine?",
   "answer": "In person, workplace social talk tends to be brief, unplanned and between two people. Over video it became scheduled and happened in larger groups, where nobody could drift into a side conversation, so topics stayed general and inclusive.",
   "source": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.2, p. 10",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-2-p-10"
    },
    {
     "location": "§5.4, p. 19",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-4-p-19"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Why do group video chats with colleagues feel awkward?",
   "answer": "Mostly because of how turns are taken. Lag and one shared audio channel make people talk over each other, and missing body language makes it hard to see who wants to speak. The polite habit of ceding the floor then leaves everyone waiting.",
   "source": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.4, pp. 20–21",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-4-pp-20-21"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Does seniority still matter when colleagues socialise online?",
   "answer": "Yes, perhaps more than in person. When colleagues socialised over video, people were more careful about interrupting senior colleagues and deferred to them. Senior staff or the call's host tended to steer the conversation, which made social calls feel closer to meetings.",
   "source": "Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§5.3, pp. 15–16",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.html#at-s5-3-pp-15-16"
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "cites": [
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/interrogative-gaze-making-video-calling-messaging-accountable.html",
   "title": "The ‘interrogative gaze’: Making video calling and messaging ‘accountable’",
   "location": "p. 33"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/large-scale-analysis-of-multitasking-behavior-during-remote-meetings.html",
   "title": "Large Scale Analysis of Multitasking Behavior During Remote Meetings",
   "location": "p. 32"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/maximizing-environmental-validity-remote-recording-of-desktop-videoconferencing.html",
   "title": "Maximizing environmental validity: remote recording of desktop videoconferencing",
   "location": "p. 35"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/the-promise-and-peril-of-parallel-chat-in-video-meetings-for-work.html",
   "title": "The Promise and Peril of Parallel Chat in Video Meetings for Work",
   "location": "p. 36"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/video-calling-in-long-distance-relationships-the-opportunistic-use-of-audiovideo-distortions-as-a-relational-resource.html",
   "title": "Video Calling in Long-Distance Relationships: The Opportunistic use of Audio/Video Distortions as a Relational Resource",
   "location": "p. 35"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/meetingcoach-an-intelligent-dashboard-for-supporting-effective-inclusive-meetings.html",
   "title": "MeetingCoach: An Intelligent Dashboard for Supporting Effective and Inclusive Meetings",
   "location": "p. 36"
  }
 ],
 "quantitative": [],
 "implications": [
  {
   "summary": "Support planning by coupling asynchronous and synchronous tools so informal calls are easier to organise.",
   "quote": "a tighter coupling of asynchronous and synchronous communication tools would allow remote informal conversations to be organized with less effort",
   "location": "§6.6, p. 26"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Support playful interaction and shared activities such as games and quizzes.",
   "quote": "Our work highlights that social talk with colleagues tends to be most effective when focused on a shared activity.",
   "location": "§6.6, p. 27"
  },
  {
   "summary": "De-emphasise status, for example with bots that initiate social calls instead of senior staff.",
   "quote": "Design practitioners should look to de-emphasize these status effects to improve social VC experiences.",
   "location": "§6.6, p. 27"
  },
  {
   "summary": "As best practice, accept multitasking during social calls.",
   "quote": "managers and team members should be accepting of this behavior when planning and conducting VC-based social talk",
   "location": "§6.7, p. 29"
  },
  {
   "summary": "As best practice, consider how group size affects the conversation.",
   "quote": "organizers should be aware of these limitations and how the size of the group may affect conversational experience",
   "location": "§6.7, p. 29"
  }
 ],
 "limitations": [
  {
   "summary": "Participants came from research institutes, which may limit generalisability.",
   "quote": "limiting our results to work practices in research institutes",
   "location": "§6.8, p. 30"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Participants recruited colleagues they already knew, so findings apply more to people with prior relationships.",
   "quote": "our interview findings are therefore likely to be more applicable to those that have a previous relationship",
   "location": "§6.8, p. 30"
  },
  {
   "summary": "The study took place during the pandemic, so results must be read in that time period.",
   "quote": "it is important to contextualize our results in the time period in which the data was collected (August and September 2020)",
   "location": "§6.8, p. 30"
  },
  {
   "summary": "The timed, recorded conversation session lowers ecological validity.",
   "quote": "We acknowledge the lower ecological validity of our study due to the allocated time frame and recording of the conversation.",
   "location": "§4.2, p. 7"
  }
 ],
 "figures": [
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing/fig-2.webp",
   "caption": "FIGURE 2. Themes and sub-themes from semi-structured interviews for social talk with colleagues via video conferencing during COVID-19",
   "alt": "Three themes. Purpose and Opportunities: media ecosystems, opportunity, connectedness, talking shop, phases. Relationships: barriers, status and roles. Etiquette and Politeness: multitasking, paralinguistic cues, common ground, interruptions.",
   "location": "Fig. 2, p. 39",
   "credit": "Figure 2 from Anna Bleakley, Daniel Rough, Justin Edwards, Philip Doyle, Odile Dumbleton, Leigh Clark, Sean Rintel, Vincent Wade, and Benjamin R. Cowan. 2022. Bridging social distance during social distancing: Exploring social talk and remote collegiality in video conferencing. Human–Computer Interaction 37 (5), 404-432. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2021.1994859"
  }
 ],
 "pageNumbersReferTo": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/bridging-social-distance-during-social-distancing-exploring-social-talk-and-remote-collegiality-in-video-conferencing.pdf",
 "verified": "2026-10-25",
 "studyFigure": {
  "about": "The opening figure on this paper's page, made for the site with AI assistance from this verified brief. It is not the paper's own figure. Evidence entries index this file's quantitative, findings and limitations arrays.",
  "study": {
   "kind": "single",
   "summary": "Qualitative study with 30 colleagues from five research institutes in three countries, working from home in August and September 2020. Ten groups of three each held a social video call, then each person was interviewed.",
   "steps": [
    {
     "label": "Ten groups of three",
     "detail": "Each group of three colleagues was at a similar career stage and had worked together in person before the pandemic."
    },
    {
     "label": "A 20 minute social call",
     "detail": "Each group held an unstructured social conversation over Zoom, with no set topic."
    },
    {
     "label": "Separate interviews",
     "detail": "Each participant then had a 30-minute semi-structured interview about social talk with colleagues and the call itself."
    },
    {
     "label": "Thematic analysis",
     "detail": "Two researchers coded the interview transcripts independently, then grouped and agreed the themes together."
    }
   ]
  },
  "findings": {
   "legend": null,
   "stages": [
    {
     "title": "Social ties across distance",
     "sub": "what interviewees described about colleague relationships",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees said video calls lowered the barriers to social talk with colleagues.",
       "detail": "Interviewees met colleagues outside their own group and in other countries, and got to know existing colleagues better.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[0]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees described social talk over video as something that had to be scheduled.",
       "detail": "Without chance meetings in corridors, social calls lost their spontaneity and sometimes felt like one more work task.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[1]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees found video chat easy with old colleagues and awkward with less familiar ones.",
       "detail": "Colleagues who had built relationships in person before the pandemic said talking over video felt close to talking face to face.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[2]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    },
    {
     "title": "How group calls ran",
     "sub": "what interviewees described about talk in the calls",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees said seniority shaped social calls, as in work meetings.",
       "detail": "People took more care about interrupting senior colleagues. Senior members, or whoever hosted the call, tended to act as moderator.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[3]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees said topics stayed general because a shared audio channel allowed no side conversations.",
       "detail": "Interviewees kept topics light so that nobody felt left out. Interviewees also accepted each other's multitasking during group calls.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[4]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "Interviewees described lag causing people to talk over each other.",
       "detail": "The silences that followed grew longer when everyone politely gave way at once.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[5]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    }
   ]
  },
  "keyTerm": "remote collegiality",
  "takeaway": "Video calls can build remote collegiality by removing physical barriers to social talk between colleagues. Easing planning, shared activities and turn taking may make such talk feel less like work."
 }
}
