Scientists Agree That Everyone Hates Your Terrible Zoom Mic

If your mic sucks on a conference call then everyone judges you. In our deepest hearts we all know this is true but now it’s confirmed by science. A new study from Yale looked at people’s perception of a speaker based on how their mic makes them sound. The results won’t shock you. People with bad audio setups are less likely to get a job, land a date, or be seen as credible. According to a blogpost about the study, lead author Brian Scholl got the idea for the study during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Scholl is a professor of psychology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Wu Tsai Institute and was on a lot of conference calls while everyone was still figuring out their setups and learning how to use Zoom. During one meeting, Scholl was on a call with a colleague who had an excellent sound setup and another who was talking through a tinny laptop mic. Scholl realized he thought his colleague on the better mic was making better points and that he didn’t like what ... Read full article.