Why we wave at the end of a Zoom call

IOWA CITY — Susan Wagner Cook was on a Zoom conference call last month that had some issues.

“We were having video problems, so it was audio-only,” Cook said. “At the end of the call, I still found myself waving.”

Cook, associate professor at the University of Iowa’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of the school’s Communication, Cognition and Learning Lab, thinks it’s normal for people to exchange waves at the end of a (properly functioning) online video call.

“I agree it kind of feels weird to wave in your own space, but it also feels nice to connect with people,” she said.

Nearly four years after remote work went mainstream, the so-called “Zoom wave” serves people’s need to recreate the social connections that the pandemic ruptured.

Cook was thinking about such behavior before 2020.

“I’ve been interested in the difference between virtual interactions and real interactions for a long time,” she said. “The basic question of how communication works in different contexts is an interesting question.”

Rituals

For some, the wave is a simple way to signal the meeting is over before digitally departing.

Some wave just to be polite. Others enjoy it.

Whatever the reason, it’s as much a remote-work ritual as wearing sweatpants with a business-friendly top (known as the “Zoom mullet”).

“I am a big fan of the wave,” said Erica Keswin, a workplace strategist and author. “People like to know when something begins and ends. Those beginnings and ending are what I call ‘prime rituals real estate,’ and rituals give us a sense of belonging and connection.”

A survey this month by professional network Fishbowl found that 55 percent of workers wave at the end of a digital call.

That’s down from the 57 percent who said they did so last year in a survey by Zoom Video Communications, and the three out of four who said so in 2021.

The gradual decline, as the pandemic receded and millions of workers returned to offices, doesn’t surprise Cook.

“As people’s need for connection declines, they are less likely to wave,” she said.

‘Motor resonance’

Cook and other experts don’t foresee the wave going away completely, though.

One big reason is something called “motor resonance” — when a person waves, it’s almost automatic to wave back.

Multiple social-psychology studies show that we’re more likely to be empathetic and cooperative toward people that we’ve synchronized movements with, and empathy and teamwork were things many organizations struggled to instill during the stressful days of COVID-19 lockdowns.

“We actually found that hand gestures had a greater effect in a virtual environment,” Cook said. She’s also found some people prefer Zoom meetings to gathering people in a room.

“Some people find it easier to get the floor on Zoom,” she said. “The timing is disrupted, it’s a little bit slower.”

Darren Murph, a hybrid-work adviser who handles strategic communications at Ford Motor Co., notes another benefit of the Zoom wave.

“In a video call, last impressions are as important as first impressions, and waving sends a signal that others can feel safe in our presence,” he said.

Awkward?

The dynamics of virtual versus in-person meetings also play a role in the wave, according to Jesper Aagaard, an associate professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at Denmark’s Aarhus University.

After a face-to-face meeting, there’s a so-called interstitial period where people linger and chat as they walk out together. But video calls end abruptly, so we need to say our farewells all at once.

“This, in turn, lends an exaggerated and cartoonish quality to the Zoom wave,” Aagaard said.

It’s the awkwardness of the wave that puts some people off, but by not waving, workers risk being seen as rude.

“It bothers me when I wave, and people don’t wave back,” says Molly Beck, founder and CEO of enterprise communications software maker WorkPerfectly. “I would compare it to when you hold the door for someone and they don’t say thank you.”

In other words, the UI’s Cook said, the cultural cost of being perceived as impolite “outweighs this momentary feeling of, ‘Am I a weirdo?’ ”

Some workers are conditional wavers.

Cali Williams Yost, a flexible-work strategist, says she waves when Zooming with new contacts, almost as a “nice to meet you” gesture.

But if it’s the same group every week, “rarely does anyone wave, including me.”

For others, it’s the type of wave that matters.

“I recommend the fast wave, as if another car was letting you go first at a busy intersection, not the type of slow wave if you were on a parade float,” Beck said.

And while she’s waving with one hand, Beck leaves the call with the other.

‘Why it’s great’

“It’s a little embarrassing, aggressively corny, and serves no purpose other than sincerely acknowledging the other people in the call,” journalist Justin Pot wrote in a 2021 blog post about Zoom waves on the website of Zapier, a fully remote business software maker whose staff often deploy the Zoom wave.

“But that’s why it’s great. No one should feel bad for doing it.”

Not everyone agrees, but workers likely won’t be saying farewell to the Zoom wave anytime soon.

“Humans adapt to media, and some of the habits which have evolved to manage the strangeness of videoconferencing have endured,” said Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, who has studied another remote-work phenomenon — Zoom fatigue, the exhaustion suffered from videoconferencing all day.

“The long wave may be with us for some time.”

Bloomberg reporter Matthew Boyle contributed to this report.

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