Verified by 
Key points
- Eye contact occurred only 3% of the time during face-to-face conversations, according to a study.
- Lack of practice with in-person conversation leads many companies to offer etiquette classes.
- Even looking at someone's face may provide a sense of eye contact in a conversation.
Eye contact in a conversation is rare, occurring just over 3% of the time during a conversation between two people, according to Canadian researchers. Looking at each other’s face occurred more often, but only 12% of the time.
But mutual gaze may also be a nonverbal means of communication that predicts future interaction, such as following the gaze of the other person to a place of interest.
In this study, conducted by Florence Maynard and her colleagues at McGill University, volunteers wore mobile eye-tracking devices while they spoke to another person about the items they would need in a survival situation and ranked their importance. During the study, the participants often looked at other features of the other person’s face, like the mouth or nose.
But working from home remotely contributed to a lack of practice in eye contact and other conversational skills. It can be difficult to make eye contact with someone represented by a thumbnail picture on a screen. This is especially true because looking at the other person's eyes on-screen may mean looking away from the camera. To give more practice in these other in-person conversational skills, according to Fortune, 60% of companies surveyed offer practice in such skills as part of etiquette classes.
Toastmasters International offers clubs nationwide that give people practice in public speaking. In a 2024 publication, Mike Landrum, an executive speaker’s coach and speechwriter in New York City, discusses the importance of thinking of your eyes as receivers of information as well as transmitters. As receivers, you can pick up cues about a person’s level of interest and understanding of what you are saying and respond accordingly.
He emphasizes cultural differences in eye contact as well. New Yorkers jammed together in the subway “know the only way to cope is to avoid looking at anyone’s eyes.” Advice on public speaking often advocates making eye contact briefly and then moving on. Making eye contact too long could be threatening or creepy. According to Landrum,
While direct eye contact is valued in the United States, it can be considered an invasion of privacy in some places – Asian countries, for example. When speaking to such audiences, don’t focus on one individual for too long – it could embarrass them….
When you think of your eyes as receivers rather than transmitters, it changes your style as a speaker. Now you can become interested in your audience as a group of individuals and speak to them one at a time. How? Deliver a full thought to each person you look at. Lock eyes with that listener and see the response in [their] eyes. Then pause, find another person and deliver next thought. Read [their] eyes as you speak. If you feel that method slows you down, all the better—most speakers tend to rush.
Even looking at a person's face may elicit the perception of eye contact and enhance the sense of communication, according to Colin Palmer and his colleagues at the School of Psychology in Sydney, Australia. They found that a zone of perceived eye contact can extend across the face. This may be good news for those who want to communicate effectively but are reserved or anxious about looking others directly in the eye,
So eye contact is a feature of nonverbal communication that may be infrequent but effective in person-to-person conversation. Recently, it has been measured with eye-tracking technology. How much and how often it occurs varies in different cultures and situations. Often recommended as an important skill in public speaking, it's a means of communication we do not want to lose amid the omnipresence of remote work and virtual conversations.
Facebook image: Edvard Nalbantjan/Shutterstock
