What Do I Do With My Hands (When Presenting Online)?
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According to academic scholars, hand gestures when communicating transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries. (1) And while we know they are important to speech and communication, there are competing theories as to why. (2) Regardless of why, research suggests that gestures “can alter the interpretation of speech, disambiguate speech, increase comprehension and memory, and convey information not delivered by speech.” (3) Similar to what we said about movement in the previous section, it is crucial that a presenter’s use of their hands is both intentional and balanced. In fact, “being able to see the face and hand movements of a speaker facilitates language comprehension.” (4)
But wait…when you’re presenting online, you are usually seated (or standing in one place, if you have a standing desk), and your “stage” is limited to whatever scope your camera lens can capture. How can a speaker incorporate hand gestures if they might not be seen?
Although it can be difficult to incorporate hand gestures into an online presentation, any hand gestures you do use in an online setting should accentuate your main points, add to the story, and be regarded as another tool to help engage listeners. In the context of online presentations, hands normally rest comfortably on the tabletop, and depending on your distance from the camera, gestures look most natural when kept near the top of your sternum.
Toastmasters explicitly highlights three types of hand gestures: conventional, emotional, and descriptive. According to its manual Using Body Language:
“Conventional gestures are symbols for words, such as the raised hand for the word ‘stop’ and two raised fingers for the number two.
Descriptive gestures describe the idea you are communicating, such as holding the hands apart to show length or moving the hands and arms to indicate shape.
Emotional gestures suggest feelings, such as shaking a clenched fist to show anger or determination or shrugging the shoulders to show indifference.” (5)
There have been a few common mistakes that we consistently see when watching online presentations. In these instances, the presenter:
unknowingly plays with their fingers.
fails to keep their gestures close to their chest and as a result, their gestures look as though they are going to hit the camera (think about how you might react if a speaker is pointing at you…a gigantic finger coming toward your face might be a bit unnerving!).
has overly stiff/straight fingers, which looks awkward.
fails to use gestures and misses an opportunity to emphasize key points.
uses gestures that are jerky, bouncy, or abrupt.
keeps their hands too low, which means that attendees only see the speaker’s shoulders or upper arms move, or their fingertips are the only parts that appear within the camera frame.
What’s most important is that you identify a process that looks natural and communicates professionalism. According to Van Edwards, “The bottom TED Talks had an average of 124,000 views and used an average of 272 hand gestures during the 18-minute Talk. The top TED Talks had an average of 7,360,000 views and used an average of 465 hand gestures—that’s almost double!” (6) This suggests some degree of connection between the use of hand gestures and an appealing presentation. And while TED Talks are “in-person” presentations, we nonetheless assert that hand gestures are just as relevant to online communication.
So to directly address the question we ask in the title of this blog post, what do you do with your hands when presenting online? The answer is simple: Use them! They will help your audience better understand your message. They will help keep your audience engaged. And perhaps most important, they will help you tell a great story!
References
1. Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1998). Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228.
2. Beattie, G., & Shovelton, H. (1999). Do iconic hand gestures really contribute anything to the semantic information conveyed by speech? An experimental investigation. Semiotica, 123(1–2), 1–30.
3. Hubbard, A. L., Wilson, S. M., Callan, D. E., & Dapretto, M. (2009). Giving
4. Skipper, J. I., Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H. C., & Small, S. L. (2009). Gestures orchestrate brain networks for language understanding. Current Biology, 19(8), 661–667.
5. Toastmasters International. (2016). Using body language. https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/using-body-language.
6. Van Edwards, V. 5 secrets of a successful TED Talk. https://www.scienceofpeople.com/secrets-of-a-successful-ted-talk/
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