How much does "face time" matter in today's digital world?

[AJ_Katz]

For those of you who are wondering, "face time" is a term used for the act of being present at your place of work.  Recently, I've been struggling with how important face time is in today's digital world where we are able to get into contact with people via text, email, and phone, at basically anytime of the day. 

My recommendation to graduate students is that they have to be mindful of this, that being present at the office and seen working hard can cultivate a reputation of reliability and good work ethic.  I do not set hard lines about how much face time is needed, but simply advocate for being mindful of how this can work to your advantage, yet that if you are not being productive while at work (noisy office, awful lighting, etc.), then it may not help you in the long-term. 

I try to practice what I preach on this one too.  I try to be present at the office during normal work hours and, when necessary, seek refuge at a coffee shop or at home when I really need uninterrupted focus time (about 2 times per month).  Most days per week, I can be found at my office and have an open-door policy.

My struggle is .... so many faculty around me are not present.  The staff in our office are here daily, as am I.  The students and postdocs are here most days too.  This seems like such a lop-sided dynamic.  The department head has said hu wishes more faculty were present to keep the department feeling alive, and yet is out of the office 2-3 days per week on average and says, "well, you can always reach me through email". 

So -- does face time actually matter in today's digital world?  I still think the answer is yes because there are opportunities for interactions and learning from one another that are spontaneous and may not otherwise occur.  I do value the productivity I can achieve while working in a secluded location, but I think our academic environment is suffering from this.

What do you think?  Does face time still matter in today's digital world?  I'd like to hear what you think.

[Puget]

I explicitly tell my grad students I don't care where they work so long as they are productive. We have weekly lab hours where everyone is there and we meet in various combinations, and weekly lab meetings, and they often need to be in the lab collecting data, but if they are analyzing or writing they can do that anywhere. That said, I've been pleased that they seem to like to hang out in the lab or their shared office a lot together, which is good for bouncing ideas around.

I work from home and cafes a lot in the summer, and one or two days a week during the semester when I can swing it, though I often end up not being able to between class and meeting schedules.

[Hegemony]

What field are you in, OP?  I am in the humanities, and even when I was a grad student, back in the Dark Ages before digital pretty much anything, we had no thought of face time being necessary.  The point was to work hard and do good research, not to perform presence.  I think if someone had showed up in some public venue too often, people might even have said, "Doesn't that student have some real work to do?" 

In my view, the proof is in the pudding.  Hanging out with other students, and to some extent faculty, is good for morale and not feeling isolated — but that should be outside of work hours, not overlapping with them.

[scamp]

I think it matters quite a bit if you are in a department that values undergraduate education in particular. The more casual interactions with undergrads in your department that happen when you are on campus and seen are important to developing relationships so that students are comfortable asking for help with work, etc. In my experience, when you neglect this, students lean on people who are in their offices, creating more work for your colleagues. If you (or your department) don't really give a shit about your undergrads, then you can get away with a lot less face time (although I would argue that my grad students wandered a little less aimlessly than those of my colleagues who were often not around).

[AJ_Katz]

What field are you in, OP?  I am in the humanities, and even when I was a grad student, back in the Dark Ages before digital pretty much anything, we had no thought of face time being necessary.  The point was to work hard and do good research, not to perform presence.  I think if someone had showed up in some public venue too often, people might even have said, "Doesn't that student have some real work to do?" 

In my view, the proof is in the pudding.  Hanging out with other students, and to some extent faculty, is good for morale and not feeling isolated — but that should be outside of work hours, not overlapping with them.

I'm in the STEM sciences and run an active research lab.  We have undergraduate workers in the department, but no undergrad program.  Your view on this is interesting, especially saying things like "perform presence" and "hanging out".  It makes me think that in your field that people do not need to learn anything from the people who they work with and it's all solo work to be done.  In my field, although students have their own projects to manage, they frequently need to learn new lab or data analysis techniques from each other.  I'm not talking about social hours here.

[mamselle]

The differences that seem to be surfacing may be tied to other expectations often under discussion on the fora.

Humanities scholars are more often (but not always, and maybe less so, recently) perceived as solo producers of credible work: some collaboration happens, and it may be increasing, but by and large there's only one name on the article, monograph, or larger books produced.

The threads with questions about authorial order, for example, nearly always have a more recent arrival saying, "What? You publish in groups in the sciences? We would never do that in this or that humanities field!"

So the need for more direct social/interactive work contact makes sense as a corollary, perhaps.

It's also a bit ironic given the still-persistent imagery/stereotyping of scientists as lone nerds with few interactive skills.

Yet another inaccurate perception to be exploded, perhaps...

M.

[Puget]

I think it matters quite a bit if you are in a department that values undergraduate education in particular. The more casual interactions with undergrads in your department that happen when you are on campus and seen are important to developing relationships so that students are comfortable asking for help with work, etc. In my experience, when you neglect this, students lean on people who are in their offices, creating more work for your colleagues. If you (or your department) don't really give a shit about your undergrads, then you can get away with a lot less face time (although I would argue that my grad students wandered a little less aimlessly than those of my colleagues who were often not around).

Huh, we must have very different undergrads-- we have a hard enough time getting them to come see us during office hours, let alone wandering in at other random times.

[scamp]

I think it matters quite a bit if you are in a department that values undergraduate education in particular. The more casual interactions with undergrads in your department that happen when you are on campus and seen are important to developing relationships so that students are comfortable asking for help with work, etc. In my experience, when you neglect this, students lean on people who are in their offices, creating more work for your colleagues. If you (or your department) don't really give a shit about your undergrads, then you can get away with a lot less face time (although I would argue that my grad students wandered a little less aimlessly than those of my colleagues who were often not around).

Huh, we must have very different undergrads-- we have a hard enough time getting them to come see us during office hours, let alone wandering in at other random times.

Weirdly, I could never get them to come see me at office hours! Our program also had a lot of group work (due to the nature of the program) so they were often working on campus.

[spork]

This is just as much of a problem for undergrads as it is for faculty. When I was in college, the basic rule of life was that there were three different time sucks -- academics, part-time employment, and a romantic relationship -- but you could have only two of the three at once, and academics was always one of the two.

Today academics are just one of any number of co-equal priorities for many students, and as a result many campuses turn into deserted wastelands after 3:00 pm Monday-Thursday and from noon on Friday until 8:00 am on Monday. And while I am quite happy to schedule face-to-face meetings with students outside of my posted office hours for significant matters, I am not going to make a two-hour round trip to campus just to write my signature on a form -- especially since there is a 50 percent probability the student won't show.

I'll note that I don't run a lab and have no post-docs or graduate students.

[Liquidambar]

Face time matters to me and many of my coworkers.  We're annoyed with those who mostly don't come to campus.  They get out of a lot of service.  Whenever something comes up that needs to be dealt with, it's easier for those of us who are here to take care of it than to contact our absent colleagues for them to do it.  However, we then resent those colleagues for not pulling their weight.  It doesn't help that the same people who don't put in face time are the people who volunteer for as little committee service as possible.

As for research students, I don't make them sit in the lab all day, but I expect them to have a general sense of what everyone is working on and to be able to interact with each other productively.  If I tell A to learn a technique from B, it's on them to schedule when/where they'll discuss it.  I also sometimes need them to be available for meetings with about a day's advance notice, so they shouldn't leave town without telling me.

[Kron3007]

As with most things, the importance here seems to vary by field, type of school, etc.

In my lab based STEM field I find face time is one of the most important factors for student success.  Lab work simply does not get done through email or Skype...

When I was a student, I aimed to be there before my advisor and leave after them, so it would seem I was just always there.  This was pretty easy as my advisor arrived late and left early (but worked a lot in the evening, often returning e-mails at all hours).

I don't enforce defined work hours, but definitely encourage my students to treat it like a job and be there during work hours.  This changes once their lab work is complete and they are mostly writing, where I understand that some people work better from home or another location.

On the flip side, I also put in a lot of face time now as my students need regular guidance and support.  Some faculty delegate this to technicians and postdocs, but for now I am heavy on students, light on staff, so it falls on me.  That being said, I think I will remain pretty involved as I have seen delegating too much have bad results and it is my job.

[Juvenal]

Yes, "type of school" and so on.  As my info might imply I'm "retired" for about five years (STEM/CC) now, but continue to adjunct one course.  Through a concatenation of circumstances I have retained an office (rare privilege!), and while adjuncts have no requirement for office hours, I do hold them (not the exhaustive number that FT have).  I felt/feel that if offices are dark and the halls rarely trodden by faculty, it makes the building seem somehow lacking a certain academic--well, I hesitate to use the word "ambience," but nothing else comes to mind.

I will also say that students rarely come to my office hours, but I merely set up the buffet.  If partaken of, that's another matter.  Most students who darken the door are looking for a) paper for the printer in the study center or b) a staple for a report.  It's hard to provide a staple with only a digital presence.

[polly_mer]

What field are you in, OP?  I am in the humanities, and even when I was a grad student, back in the Dark Ages before digital pretty much anything, we had no thought of face time being necessary.  The point was to work hard and do good research, not to perform presence.  I think if someone had showed up in some public venue too often, people might even have said, "Doesn't that student have some real work to do?" 

In my view, the proof is in the pudding.  Hanging out with other students, and to some extent faculty, is good for morale and not feeling isolated — but that should be outside of work hours, not overlapping with them.

This mindset is one way that people get trapped into just the One True Path for academia instead of having many wonderful options as other people transition to jobs where they can help get other bright, educated people hired.  The value of having many loose ties (https://www.businessinsider.com/career-value-of-weak-ties-2014-12) in the network is often that other people think fondly enough of you, but have different experiences and thus can help with new options that won't ever be advertised.  The three people working exactly in your area are probably less useful for that broad job search than the people one regularly chats with over the photocopier or waiting for the microwave in the break room.

This mindset also contributes to the problem of how to raise the perceived value of one's work because few people know what one has done.  This has become a huge problem in my fields where people have given up on keeping up with the field by browsing the table of contents for a handful of journals, but instead have students use a search engine to do a literature review.  No one will invite you to help organize the cool panel if they don't know you exist.  However, as one makes the rounds at various institutions at various career stages, one can build a great network by being pleasantly present wherever one is.  As one's network makes slightly different rounds, when the topic of one's research is mentioned, then others can make the suggestion to contact one.  Even when I was at Super Dinky College, I received some great invitations because my work was mentioned during a discussion at some place far removed.

Being the best networker won't save someone who is completely unproductive and unqualified, but many jobs that aren't TT professor are filled by someone's acquaintance who will be good enough and thus the very-flexible-on-qualifications job is never advertised because we can fill it another way.

Even getting a TT job might be easier if one has enough bouncing around of ideas to move forward in publishing as well as the solid support through example of continuous writing/publishing.  Having many people who can write fabulous letters of recommendation as well as forwarding notices of TT job openings before they are advertised in all the venues is also very helpful.

[marshwiggle]

On the flip side, I also put in a lot of face time now as my students need regular guidance and support.  Some faculty delegate this to technicians and postdocs, but for now I am heavy on students, light on staff, so it falls on me.  That being said, I think I will remain pretty involved as I have seen delegating too much have bad results and it is my job.

The three people working exactly in your area are probably less useful for that broad job search than the people one regularly chats with over the photocopier or waiting for the microwave in the break room.

Both of these illustrate the point that it's the informal nature of face-to-face meetings that doesn't really work electronically.  Teaching in a lab, I notice (and point out to TAs) that if you walk around, students will ask questions that they wouldn't even if you were standing at the side of the room and not busy.

When I was a grad student, my supervisor was a Dean, but still tried to have lunch with the research group frequently. That was good, but one of my recommendations for potential grad students would be to find a supervisor who spends significant time in the lab. The kind of "Oh, by the way...." conversations you'll have in person are not going to happen (or not nearly as much) electronically.

[Antiphon1]

Cueing up "You Gotta Have Friends"

You should have a work buddy in every building/major office on campus.  These persons needn't be your best friends or even a people you'd necessarily socialize with off campus.  These are the go to connections who keep you in the know and put in a discrete word at the right time.  They also help build the institutional memory and/or shortcuts allowing us to avoid unnecessary blocks at exactly the wrong time.  For instance, you may have flaked on an important deadline.  Your friend in that office can expedite a solution thus avoiding a delay or work stoppage. Please remember, though, these relationships are reciprocal.  Your will be called on to return the favor.  Do it.  And smile.  Your turn will come if you patiently cultivate those relationships.