Zoom Fog

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the online platform Zoom helped keep Quaker meetings alive by allowing Friends to gather together via teleconference. It also introduced new long-term options for Quaker meetings. After the worst of the pandemic was over, many Quaker meetings decided to start scheduling “hybrid” meetings, which involved setting up videoconferencing equipment in the rooms where Friends held in-person meetings. For Friends who simply shifted from pandemic-era online worship into online hybrid worship, the new arrangement felt pretty much the same as before.

On the other hand, Friends who had yearned to return to the quiet, human-centered, mystical experience they’d known before the pandemic found that they had to tolerate the presence of audiovisual equipment in the worship room. For some meetings, this simply meant a small laptop over in the corner. In other meetings, Friends have been greeted by huge screens, professional microphones, amplifiers, and web cameras mounted in the center of the worship circle. Zoom techs try to arrive early so that the anchoring time of early worship won’t be interrupted by “Check-check-check,” “Testing-testing,” or “Why isn’t the camera working?” During worship, virtual participants call out to those in the room to “speak up” or “please go to the microphone.” It is not uncommon for a tech to dart across the room to fiddle with dials. The techs also stay late after worship to turn everything off and to listen to frequent suggestions for improvements. Some Zoom techs find it difficult to enter deeply into worship. The availability of tech support has dwindled over time in some meetings.

It should surprise no one that Friends express contradictory views about the role of hybrid worship in our meetings. Contention here makes perfect sense, especially since hybrid worship emerged right after a period when members of our community had been isolated from each other for a year or even two, a time when we were also isolated from our traditional practices. We had gotten out of the habit of seeking unity. Some Friends stopped attending meeting altogether.

During our disputes over hybrid worship, Quaker meetings have gotten stuck on questions like whether people participating virtually were joining Friends at the meetinghouse or the other way around. Some Friends were divided over the question of whether people in the meeting room were being unfriendly by not sitting facing the Zoom screen. Friends have also been divided over whether it is unfriendly for people to attend remotely while leaving their cameras off. While hybrid meetings provide accessibility, how they speak to simplicity is unclear.

I have volunteered as a Zoom tech in my meeting, and from that perspective, it seems to me that the most significant challenges we face with hybrid meetings concern meetings for business or other meetings for discernment. In a hybrid setting, we have two parallel groups of Friends participating. The Clerk must call on Friends in both settings — watching the screen for Friends who want to speak (which they might indicate by raising their “virtual hands,” raising their real hands, or calling out, “Clerk, please”) and also watching for Friends in the meeting room who want to speak. If there are many virtual attenders, an assistant might be needed to keep track of the sequence in which Friends have indicated they want to be recognized – both on the screen and in the room.

Without the ability to make eye contact, observe body language, or feel energy in the room, the clerk may find it extremely challenging to gather much sense of the meeting from Friends who participate virtually. A clerk can only listen to the words that online participants have said, look for “thumbs up or thumbs down,” and reassure everyone that this is not voting. If the topic under consideration is straightforward, this limited type of communication may be sufficient. However, if the meeting is working through something challenging, the difficulties that Zoom introduces can compromise the discernment process.

For hundreds of years, Quakers have gathered together in physical locations: smelling and feeling the same breezes, looking each other in the eye, sensing the emotions of people gathered together, feeling the energy in the room. All these subliminal cues can help Friends tell when someone is ready to speak, is enthusiastic or has doubts. Physical presence also allows one person to comfort another who is struggling.

Now that Friends are gathering in person again and have had sufficient experience with Zoom, we can think more deeply about the ways we use technology in our meetings. We may even feel ready to create new advices and queries on the topic of “Use of Technology in Friends Meetings” for our books of Faith and Practice. Some resources in this area are already available. For example, Quaker Process for Friends on the Benches by Matilda Navias (2012) gives this advice, “Although certain kinds of work can be accomplished using different technologies, nothing yet has been found to replace face-to-face meetings. Many Friends suspect that there are certain kinds of communication and group discernment that can only happen when we are in the same room together.”

Queries on this topic come to mind readily. For example:

• Did your meeting set goals or expectations for the use of technology prior to its use? Did these expectations change over time? If so, why?
• Has your meeting evaluated how and when the use of technology might affect the quality of your meeting’s worship, business, or discernment processes? How might these challenges be addressed?
• How might the limitations of virtual participation and the higher complexity of facilitating a hybrid meeting affect the decision making and discernment processes for the meeting? How might these challenges be addressed?
• The ability to participate virtually is a blessing for those who are unable to take part in person. In what ways might a meeting be challenged when virtual participation is used for personal convenience or preference?
• Is simplicity now less fundamental to your meeting’s faith and practice? If so, why?

It’s important for our meetings to pause and reflect not only on the gains, but also on the losses that technology has brought to our worship, our meetings for business, and our discernment processes.

Nichoe Lichen is a member of Santa Fe Friends Meeting. Late in 2023 she stepped away from active engagement in her meeting to ponder the role of Quaker faith and practice in current times.