Wish you were here

Communication between far away friends, or between family, can become (emotionally) intense from time to time. Although developments like internet based video telephony seem to be an improvement over regular, voice only, telephony, little is known about what is exactly important in these type of communication settings. If optimal communication quality is the main goal, it is of importance to know what to optimize, record, and what to play back, and how and when.Research conducted so far in this area is sparse and mainly focused on matching face-to-face communication as closely as possible, a situation where both are being situated at the same location; a feeling of being there (Hollan & Stornetta, 1992). Since video telephony communicates a visual image of the person, one may assume that it is better than voice only telephony considering this feeling of being there. Hollan and Stornetta (1992) found, however, that social presence and information rich…