The science behind these new phenomena
The pandemic has brought many changes and challenges to our lives and one of the most prevalent of those changes has been figuring out and adjusting to working from home and endless virtual meetings.
We discovered that we now have a new culprit that also impacts our well-being: Zoom fatigue.
According to researchers at Stanford University, Zoom/Online fatigue is when you are feeling worn out and trapped into the need to be “online” all the time during the
many virtual meetings we have to endure each day, every week, and every month.
We all need ways to get over zoom fatigue to avoid burnout!
Why do we experience Zoom fatigue?
Firstly, excessive amounts of close-up eye contact are too intense.
When attending in-person meetings you tend to look at and take in the entire environment whereas with video chats, everyone focuses intently on each other, and coupled with large screens and interfaces your experience and eye contact with one another is too intense.
It is like you’re in a staring contest but at the end of it, you feel exposed and have a migraine instead of having a laugh and a beer with your opponent.
Secondly, constantly seeing yourself in real-time during video chats is fatiguing.
Seeing ourselves in a square on a screen is unnatural and can lead to one being over-critical of oneself which leads to stress.
Thirdly, virtual meetings have a major impact on our mobility.
We walk and move less around our personal spaces than what we would at the office since all your work, meetings, brainstorming sessions, research, etc. happens in one area.
Lastly, our cognitive load is much higher in virtual meetings.
When we are part of in-person conversations we subconsciously observe and interpret non-verbal gestures, cues, and messages which enriches our understanding of the person and topic.
Unfortunately, virtual communications lack in this regard, and therefore our brains have to work harder to send and receive signals.
Ways to get over Zoom-fatigue
The Stanford University researchers suggest implementing the following measures to combat Zoom fatigue:
Minimize the face size of those you are in a virtual meeting with by reducing the size of the zoom window in relation to your screen.
To avoid the distraction and stress that can be caused by looking at yourself, use the “hide self-view” option.
Think about your desk set up, create distance and flexibility between yourself and the hardware by using an external keyboard and camera that creates space between you and the screen.
Allow space behind and around your desk to be able to stand and pace which could help boost your concentration and help with stiffness caused by constant sitting.
Have short power meetings of 10- or 15-minutes.
Done effectively, short meetings with a focused agenda can have tremendous positive effects due to the high responsiveness of each member to meet fast-paced deadlines.
This also saves a lot of time for everyone to focus on their to-do list instead of spending hours on meetings.
Get interactive with your team.
Ask team members to collaborate and join the discussions instead of one person leading the meeting and creating a snore-fest…
Collaborating can bring along new ideas and improve project success.
Like they say ‘teamwork makes the dream work’.
Other ideas to help with Zoom fatigue include, scheduling breaks between meetings, making sure your meeting has a strict end time, using traditional phone calls instead of virtual meetings, and always asking yourself “can this be stated in an email?” “Yes?” Then email (there are enough other opportunities to look at your colleagues’ pretty faces).
Zoom fatigue is real and can affect our mood, well-being, and work ethic and we can all agree that we don’t need another stressor in our lives.
Next time you feel worried, burned out or overly tired from too much screen time on video chat platforms try implementing one or more of the suggestions listed above.