“I Want to Reveal, but I Also Want to Hide” Understanding the Conflict of Revealing and Hiding Needs in Virtual Study Rooms

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, video conferencing platforms have given rise to new virtual activities, such as virtual study rooms where users utilize video to share ambient presence for study motivation. In virtual study rooms, it can be challenging for the users to determine what to reveal and what to hide on camera, as the video needs to strongly convey their presence without revealing more than necessary. In this paper, we investigate the conflicting needs of virtual study room users to reveal and hide on camera, as well as the methods they employ to cope with these needs using videos. To this end, we conducted a three-step qualitative study. The first study involved interviews to discover the key user needs that entail the conflict to reveal and hide. The second study utilized virtual study room screen analysis to identify the video features that characterize virtual study room videos. In the last study, we employed interviews to associate the video features with the key user needs. Based on these findings, we discussed the effects of studying together that could be applied to a non-physical and non-interactive co-studying environment and the need for further development of video conferencing tools to effectively share ambient presence.