Virtual and Real

What differences do I notice between meeting in a virtual way and meeting in a real way?

Eye contact

Today, while delivering a remote training using Google Meet, I came to realize a strong difference between real meetings and virtual ones, with respect to eye contact.

When using such an application with several people, you don't know who the speaker is looking at because you can't figure out which thumbnail he/she is actually watching. You can only make assumptions.

When meeting face to face, the gaze direction is obvious because the face is pointing towards you.

Everyone is looking at me, all the time

This evening (March 15th, 2021), during a meditation session, a woman made very clear that virtual meeting apps like Zoom give the impression that everyone is looking at you all the time. This is very different from an actual meeting, where it rarely happens. Moreover, when such a situation happens in real life (everyone is looking at you) while you are not doing anything special (talking for instance), this is usually the sign that something is wrong with you. So I suppose it is not surprising to feel uncomfortable with that.