A new study analyzed 200,000 video segments from over 2,000 TED talks to determine the impact that hand gestures had on audience reaction.
I get asked about what people should do with their hands onstage about once per week.
Everyone is either worried or obsessed over what their hands might or should do while speaking or performing. I don’t know where this concern emanates, but it is constant and seemingly universal.
For the record, I have never thought about my hands once while speaking or performing. They do what they would normally do.
I think the worst thing that someone can do is think about or choreograph their hand gestures. When you look stilted, unnatural, rehearsed, or worst of all, performative, the audience will notice and react poorly.
I have seen this many times.
It looks weird.
It makes an audience uncomfortable.
It distracts from the words and message of the speaker, which is, of course, disastrous.
Every second that someone thinks about what to do with their hands onstage should be spent improving the words they plan to speak.
This is why the best advice is to let your hands do what they normally do.
The study found that those who used illustrative gestures throughout the talk were reliably rated as more “clear, competent, and persuasive.”
In other words, if your hand movements match your words as they do in real life, the audience responds well.
However, the study found that not all movements were helpful. For example, random waving and fidgeting offer no benefits, but gestures that visually express phrases, such as spreading one’s hands apart when saying something is far away, are helpful.
This study falls into three categories in my mind:
- No duh.
- I can’t believe you spent money on this.
- You could’ve just asked me.
