Comment by mhandley

Don't forget we've spent a lifetime learning and perfecting the use of things like body language in face-to-face meetings. You can't just switch to video conferences and expect it to be flawless without practice. But if you do it a lot, you learn when you need to verbalize things you'd rely on conveying non-verbally in a face-to-face meeting, such as when you don't quite understand something.

I supervised an entire PhD remotely many years back. We made it work, and learned as we went. Over time we got better as expressing confusion, double checking understanding, and all those sort of things where we use non-verbal clues in face-to-face meetings. It worked, but it wasn't an easy path at first. But there was an unexpected plus side - I'd learned to vocalize my doubts and confusion better, and to double-check we're on the same page. And so ever since I've found I'm more effective in face-to-face meetings.