Self Confidence Amidst a Pandemic

I am sure readers share my gloom at the necessity of re-introducing tighter restrictions in our lives as Omicron spreads. It’s almost two years since the virus first swam into public view in the UK, twenty-one months since academics rapidly learned the joys of Zoom and Teams and ‘pivoted’ to online lectures. As for now, although pretty irrelevant in a university such as mine where teaching term is already over, the Department for Education wants teaching in person to continue. Who knows what the situation will be in the New Year, despite the wonders that vaccination may have done for our immune systems? Will that be enough to protect not only us as individuals, but also the NHS (and the economy)?

Whatever the details of the infectivity of Omicron, I fear there is no way we are not condemned to a continuing parade of cries of ‘you’re muted’, ‘you’re still muted’ and ‘I’m sorry, my camera doesn’t seem to be working’ in the months ahead. Even if some, possibly most, teaching is in person, I fear committee meetings will continue through the screen. The impossibility of reading body language or catching someone in the coffee break will persist, surely to the detriment of effectiveness, not to mention comradeship. I will not be alone in finding this ongoing prospect deeply depressing, just when it had seemed there was a glimmer of light at the end of the virus tunnel.

Holding a committee meeting by Zoom is bad enough, but one thing I probably find even more perturbing, disorienting even, is to give a webinar, speaking to a screen which only displays my own set of slides.  In other words, no audience is visible as you talk over your slidepack. Even if multiple screens are set up so there is a gallery of tiny faces visible somewhere within one’s field of vision, it is impossible to make much sense of reactions. It is as bad as talking to oneself, except you aren’t and you know there is an audience responding out there, but you have no idea how. In the early days of this blog I wrote about how essentially the same talk can be received in substantially different ways (for instance as judged by the percentage of the audience who appear to go to sleep or, conversely, who nod sagely). I can’t always work out why a talk does or doesn’t go down well, but in this remote world of Zoom, I often don’t even know which has happened. Sometimes the very fact that no (virtual) hands go up at the end is an indicator the talk hasn’t landed well, but at other times you get a smattering of questions and you’re still none the wiser.

At this (late) stage of my career this may not matter too much, but I feel for those starting out who have to try to find out what works solely in this virtual world. Without audience reactions, how is one supposed to learn the tricks of the trade? I do not think this is good for self-confidence. The ultra-confident will no doubt believe, correctly or not, that their brilliance has gone down a storm. The less confident will, on the other hand, have nothing to go on to build up their confidence, to convince them that their arguments were coherent and their conclusions received rapturously.

Self-confidence is such a tricky beast in academia. We spend our lives putting out ideas, waiting for them to be shot down.  Indeed, scientific progress is only made via that process. Throughout our careers, the worry that a new pet theory has some gaping hole in it which will only be manifest after giving a presentation, may be ever present. In my experience, talking to a bunch of familiar people (one’s former supervisor or boss, for instance) may be even more nerve-wracking than talking to a bunch of strangers. I can remember various occasions when nerves felt much worse because my late mentor Ed Kramer was in the audience. On one of those occasions, at a major international conference – at a time when I was no greenhorn – my hand shook so much when using the laser pointer I realised I needed to hold it in both hands to steady the beam, to make sure it hit the slide where I wanted it. (Of course, Zoom removes that particular problem, but it’s a minor recompense.)

I guess one take-home message is that, when attending a webinar given by an ECR, kind words by email (if appropriate) might be appreciated to provide reassurance from the otherwise empty feedback. Self-confidence needs to be nurtured in those for whom it’s in short supply. However, it isn’t always easy to tell whose does need bolstering. Those obnoxious characters who appear to ooze it, may just be good at covering up. My own experience is that students/postdocs who, in one-to-one situations appear to be very timid, may nevertheless come across forcefully. Less commonly, those who seem in private totally on top of things, may end up mumbling to their shoes (although I’m not quite sure how that might manifest itself on Zoom, since eye contact is not something easily done in the best of circumstances through a screen).

Thinking back to my own early research career, when a research fellow and a young lecturer, I remember just how much my confidence was dented by others who appeared to know it all, have it all, even if they were actually more or less my contemporaries and didn’t particularly go on to the stellar careers they no doubt envisaged. In my case it was less criticising my presentations, more in criticising the somewhat eclectic materials I chose to study. Was it physics, was the implication? I took that message to heart, worrying for years I should have stayed put in the materials science departments in which I’d done my postdocs. I shouldn’t have worried. Straying into food physics back in the 1980s and 1990s was an uncomfortable thing to do, when physicists didn’t relish such a topic. Now it’s become rather fashionable, a point I noted several years ago, but – as ever – at the start of a career it is so much harder to be sure one is on a good track, not somehow going down a pointless blind alley. I can look back now and realise I was essentially ahead of the game, but it didn’t stop the anxiety at the time.

The advent of yet further delays in normal meetings due to Omicron, may make the anxious more anxious – about their science as well as their daily lives – and may prevent the healthy interactions with peers and gurus that help further scientific discoveries. It is not surprising, whether lacking self-confidence or not, the winter feels a little greyer for – I would guess – all of us, as the news about infections gets grimmer.