How to Read Body Language, Including on a Video Call

Three rules before you read anything

• Clusters, not single signals. Crossed arms on their own mean very little. Crossed arms plus short answers plus a body turned away mean more.
• Change from baseline. Notice how someone acts at the start, then watch for changes. A naturally quiet person isn’t necessarily bored; a chatty person who suddenly goes quiet might be.
• Context first. Crossed arms in a cold room, a glance away when a dog barks, a yawn at midnight. Check the obvious explanation before the psychological one.

What to look at: face, hands, posture and space

None of these has one fixed meaning. They’re worth noticing when they change or show up together.

• Face. Look for expressions that fit the moment and for quick shifts: a smile that drops, eyebrows that go up at a surprise, lips pressed together when a topic lands badly.
• Hands and shoulders. Loose, easy movement usually goes with feeling relaxed. Raised shoulders, a tight grip on something or more fiddling than before can point to tension.
• Posture and direction. People tend to turn toward what holds their interest. Turning the body away, or leaning back and staying there, can mean they’re ready to move on.
• Space. In person, someone who moves closer or stays put is usually comfortable. Stepping back can mean the opposite, but comfortable distance varies a lot between cultures and settings.

Clues that someone may be engaged

Body language reads best alongside what someone says, so some of these clues are physical and some are part of the conversation itself.

• Leaning in, or moving closer to the screen.
• Answers that get longer, and questions that come back to you.
• Sometimes picking up your expressions or gestures, often called mirroring. It’s common, but not a reliable test of interest.
• Reactions that fit what’s being said: laughing at the joke, wincing at the bad news.
• Steady attention with natural breaks, rather than a fixed stare.

Clues that someone may be uncomfortable or losing interest

• Answers shrinking to a word or two.
• Eyes repeatedly going to the same spot off-screen, or to a phone.
• Turning or leaning away.
• Fidgeting that increases as the conversation goes on.
• Flat or delayed reactions to things that would normally get one.

Don’t draw conclusions from these alone. Eye contact and expressiveness vary a lot between cultures and between people, and someone who seems distracted may simply be tired or worried about something else. If you’re unsure, ask: “Is now still a good time?”

The 7-38-55 rule, and what it actually says

You’ve probably heard that only 7% of communication is words, 38% is tone of voice and 55% is body language. The numbers come from two small 1967 experiments by psychologist Albert Mehrabian, and they don’t mean what people usually say they mean.

In one, people heard single words such as “dear” or “terrible” said in a tone that matched or clashed with the word, and judged how the speaker felt about the listener. In the other, they heard a neutral word said in different tones while looking at photos of facial expressions. Tone outweighed the word, and the face outweighed the tone. Mehrabian combined the two results into the 7-38-55 formula.

That’s a useful finding about mixed messages about feelings. Neither experiment looked at ordinary conversation.

The fair takeaway: if someone says “I’m fine” in a flat voice with a tight face, pay attention to the voice and face. Otherwise, listen to the words.

Reading body language on a video call

Video changes what you can see, and how you should read it.

You mostly see a face and shoulders

Most video calls show a head and shoulders. Hands, posture and legs are mostly out of frame, so the face, the voice and the timing of reactions carry more of the signal.

Eye contact works differently

Because the camera sits above the screen, looking at someone’s face on screen makes you appear to look slightly downward to them. A 2013 review of eye contact in video calls describes this camera-to-screen offset as one of the medium’s basic problems. So a person who never seems to meet your eyes may be doing exactly what you’re doing: looking at your face.

If you want to come across as making eye contact, try looking just under the camera. In a small 2025 study in the Journal of Vision, 17 people judged photos of actors looking at different points, and eye contact came across best when the actor looked about two degrees below the lens, not straight into it. Your setup may differ, but it’s a good place to start.

Lag changes timing

Even small transmission delays slow down turn-taking on video calls. A slightly late laugh or a pause before an answer may be the connection, not hesitation. Judge timing over several exchanges, not one.

Video is tiring

Stanford researcher Jeremy Bailenson suggests that video calls can be tiring because of “nonverbal overload”: lots of close-up eye contact, the extra effort of sending and reading signals through a screen, constantly seeing yourself and being stuck in one spot. A flat, tired face late in a call may be video fatigue, not boredom with you.

Glances and lighting can mislead

One glance off-screen could be a notification, someone else in the room or a second monitor. Repeated glances to the same spot, plus shorter answers, tell you more. A low camera angle, harsh light or a dim room can also make a neutral face look stern or tired, so don’t read much into an expression you can barely see.

Your own body language on camera

• Prop the camera up to eye level, so you’re not looking down at the other person.
• Put the light in front of you. A window or lamp behind the screen works better than one behind you.
• Sit back a little, so your shoulders and some of your gestures are in frame.
• Make reactions easy to see. Small nods and smiles are easy to miss in a video window.
• Look just under the camera when you want eye contact, especially when you’re the one talking.
• Hide your self-view if it distracts you. Watching yourself is one of the things that makes video calls tiring.

What body language can’t tell you

Body language isn’t a reliable lie detector. In a review of 206 research reports covering 24,483 judges, psychologists Charles Bond and Bella DePaulo found that people sorted lies from truths correctly only about 54% of the time, barely better than a coin flip. And those judges usually had more than body language to go on: they did better when they could hear the person than when they could only see them.

It also can’t tell you exactly what someone is thinking. Use it to notice when something may have changed, then do the simple thing: ask. Our guide to being a better conversationalist has a few good questions to start with.