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Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

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11–20 of 130 posts

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#11
Sounds like my regular in-person communication experience. I wonder if this is why I don't notice any difference between zoom and in-person?

A big thing that I like about zoom vs in-person is the knowledge that I can turn the camera and microphone off, and that as soon as I end the call I'll be instantly, blissfully alone.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#12

Here's a great article by Michael Sacasas about Zoom fatigue: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/a-theory-of-zoom-...

Reading the article it sounds a bit like he is describing zoom/video-conf as sort of the uncanny valley of in person communications. We want to make sense of it in the usual way as it is close but the differences stress the process and tire the individual.

I'm also curios if this will at all be relatable to how introverts find in person communication tiring. Maybe that same stress is at work there but from the start, without the need for the differences introduce by zoom. It will be interesting to see how the research on this plays out.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#14
post #9

We got accustomed to it, but it never stopped feeling super weird, I think, somewhere deep in our heads. A wall of faces staring at your neck is not what any real in-person thing feels like. A wall of facings looking in your eyes isn’t, either, for that matter, but the constantly-averted-gazes do add even more to the weirdness. You don’t feel so constantly watched in person, unless you’re doing a presentation. I did…

I absolutely hate calls. WFH works well when you just need to grind out something solo, but it’s awful to communicate. Personally I go in the office 1-2 days a week. If you want to talk to me, do it in person those days. If you add me to some 10 person video call. I’m just going to zone out.

I find meetings I shouldn’t have been invited to a great time to do the dishes. Likewise big status update meetings with low information content.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely hate calls. WFH works well when you just need to grind out something solo, but it’s awful to communicate. Personally I go in the office 1-2 days a week. If you want to talk to me, do it in person those days. If you add me to some 10 person video call. I’m just going to zone out.

I find meetings I shouldn’t have been invited to a great time to do the dishes. Likewise big status update meetings with low information content.

Wish that was easy for me. The people I work with seem to insist on having video on.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#18

We got accustomed to it, but it never stopped feeling super weird, I think, somewhere deep in our heads. A wall of faces staring at your neck is not what any real in-person thing feels like. A wall of facings looking in your eyes isn’t, either, for that matter, but the constantly-averted-gazes do add even more to the weirdness. You don’t feel so constantly watched in person, unless you’re doing a presentation. I did…

This is why I love meetings in VR so much. Even though the avatars don't look realistic, the feeling of being together is so much stronger.

It's just so hard to convince others before them having tried it. You can't tell someone what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#19
My guess is our brains are basically incapable of ignoring faces. It's hard coded at such a deep level. So what happens when you are confronted with an ENTIRE WALL of faces? Your circuitry goes crazy trying to map, constantly monitory, interpret them all. This is not how in person meetings work - you look at one person at a time even if you are in a room of 15 people.

Its one reason why I think there could actually be a usefulness to meeting in VR if that ever does become high enough quality and low enough burden for people to want to do it.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#20
post #9

We got accustomed to it, but it never stopped feeling super weird, I think, somewhere deep in our heads. A wall of faces staring at your neck is not what any real in-person thing feels like. A wall of facings looking in your eyes isn’t, either, for that matter, but the constantly-averted-gazes do add even more to the weirdness. You don’t feel so constantly watched in person, unless you’re doing a presentation. I did…

I absolutely hate calls. WFH works well when you just need to grind out something solo, but it’s awful to communicate. Personally I go in the office 1-2 days a week. If you want to talk to me, do it in person those days. If you add me to some 10 person video call. I’m just going to zone out.

I feel like you need to compare a 10 person video call with a 10 person in office meeting. And of course, a hallway chat vs a 1-1 zoom call or discord exchange.
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