Skip the Zoom Background. Even if you avoid the lure of the beach as your virtual background or the uber-mod office, interviewers tell me virtual backgrounds can be distracting.

To determine what certain backgrounds say about Zoom-ers, Ross and his colleagues amassed 72 photos of 36 white adults from a photo compendium of human faces assembled for researchers.

But honestly, appearing in front of a blank white wall isn't much fun, either. A high-tech but easy-to-achieve solution? ... '60s-esque oil projection swirl image as your virtual Zoom background.

All the faces in the database we used are white, thus avoiding race becoming a confounding factor and allowing us to just focus on the effect of the Zoom backgrounds.

In the realm of virtual meetings, the background you choose for your Zoom calls may have more impact than you think. According to a study conducted by Paddy Ross and his team at Durham University ...

The six backgrounds selected for the study were categorized as: home (living room), blurred home, bookcase, plants, blank wall and novelty – in this case a walrus in front of an iceberg. Adobe Stock ...

Your Zoom background can influence the first ... a bookcase, a blank wall, ... Ivanka Trump's teen daughter Arabella raids her mom's closet to wear dress worth eye-watering price for White House ...

The six backgrounds selected for the study were categorized as: home (living room), blurred home, bookcase, plants, blank wall and novelty – in this case a walrus in front of an iceberg.

The six backgrounds selected for the study were categorized as: home (living room), blurred home, bookcase, plants, blank wall and novelty – in this case a walrus in front of an iceberg. Adobe Stock ...

The six backgrounds selected for the study were categorized as: home (living room), blurred home, bookcase, plants, blank wall and novelty – in this case a walrus in front of an iceberg.