"Zoom"ed Out
“Zoom”ed Out
Considerations and Strategies for Combating “Zoom Fatigue”
As a speech-language pathologist, I have always worked in a primarily face-to-face world: whether it is seeing clients in my clinic office or meeting them in their fitness studios, lecture auditoriums, or conference rooms. I find the physical proximity to be important for my work on helping people connect with their voices and their communication.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 has made it unsafe to interact in person at this time, so myself and many other professionals have had to pivot to a virtual means of communication.
The result? We have managed to rise to the challenge, adapt our business models, and grow our businesses through this new medium. For many entrepreneurs like myself, there have been many positive outcomes- but at what cost?
I know for me, I quickly found my virtual meetings more tiring. It seemed rather counterintuitive to me that being farther away from people might cause me to fatigue sooner. But the more I spoke with others in a variety of different fields- we all agreed that having our primary mode of communication be virtual has resulted in days feeling longer and a dramatic increase in overall fatigue.
BBC.com recently posted an article on why virtual chats are so exhausting. They cited commentary from a number of professionals on the topic and I thought it would be helpful to summarize and comment on it for you here.
The article (found here), addressed not only professional but personal interactions over Zoom or other video chat platforms.
The overarching theme of “Zoom fatigue” is that it places a higher demand on us cognitively and emotionally than in-person interactions. When combined, managing these demands puts a higher load on our brain, which then results in us feeling more fatigued.
Let’s explore this further.
The first notable point is that communicating over video requires more attention. Being on a video call at home means you have to work harder to focus on the screen (which can often tire out our eyes after prolonged exposure) and you are prone to more “familiar” distractions around you. Whether this is children, partners, a picture of sentimental value, or even just the (dis)comfort of the new desk chair you had to purchase in a pinch on Amazon.
We also inevitably end up dividing attention between watching the people who are talking and the others on the call- including ourselves. Maybe someone left their microphone on and we’re hearing feedback or someone has an interesting painting or pet in the background. This may provide its own distraction, as we start to divide our attention between listening and thinking about how we or others look.. This not only provides a cognitive distraction, but an emotional or self-conscious one.
That leads me to the next point: Communicating over video makes us blissfully aware of the fact we are being watched or monitored. Gone are the conference room days of yore when eyes were only on the speaker. On a virtual call, everyone gets a face-focused view of everyone else in the meeting. This means we can often feel the same sort of “presentation anxiety” or feel like we have to be “on” even when we’re just listening. And this can go on for the duration of the meeting.
And how about those technical difficulties? Communicating over video can result in misinterpretation of a person’s level of engagement. The article quoted a study by Schoenenberg and Koeppe in 2014 that found a delay of only 1.2 seconds over the phone or video call (due to freezing, broken transmission, slow internet connection, etc.) resulted in people interpreting the speaker on the other end of the call as less friendly or engaged. The result? We enjoy the call less and therefore have to work harder to engage ourselves. We’ve all had that experience of more challenging conversations or meetings (in person or otherwise) feeling more exhausting than those we found interactive or enjoyable.
Non-verbal communication is more nuanced and demands more interpretive and reasoning power. When communicating over video, we are often only privy to a shoulder up view- which is often significantly reduced in scale. This makes picking up on the non-verbal cues in communication more challenging- even from what we CAN see (the face). However, we are trained to look at the whole picture of communication (so to speak) and so without us being aware of it, our brains work harder to evaluate and interpret nuances through blurry or broken up webcam images of only about a quarter of a person’s body.
The final and possibly most interesting take away for me is about context. Communicating over video causes all context to collapse into one. Our brains are used to getting a variety of different stimuli from a variety of different contexts or environments (e.g. work, home, gym, studio, mall, cafe, restaurant, etc.). So while we may be talking to all the same people (e.g. our bosses, our friends, our family, etc.) we are also now communicating with them all in the same way and effectively- in the same place. More of the same means less apparent “breaks for the brain” and less opportunity to “refresh”- which again, results in an increase in fatigue.
So what can we do to combat “Zoom Fatigue?”
Well, being aware of these challenges is the first step. There are some strategies that might also help.
Consider implementing these 10 tips to help reduce your fatigue and ensure you continue to perform at your best!
Turn off your own camera when listening (and/or suggest other listeners do the same)
Provide a written summary of talking points for a virtual meeting
Space out virtual meetings
Limit the number of large group calls
Take breaks from screens regularly (yes, that includes your phone and TV), and do something different that you enjoy
Change your position from sitting to standing during a call or between calls
Make the person talking the biggest part of the screen
Limit distractions around the screen- maybe even have the screen positioned so you are facing a wall.
Change locations for different meetings (maybe take a call outside with a friend, or in a different room, etc.)
Wear headphones to limit auditory distractions and prevent you from having to strain to hear.
Stay fresh! Stay focused! And keep fighting off that “Zoom Fatigue!”