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Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

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Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#61

Post by eropple »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #52
eropple wrote: post #24

The biggest thing that leads to this, I think, is bad audio. Listening to shitty scratchy laptop microphones -- or even the comparatively-excellent Apple array microphones -- is deeply fatiguing. I notice a distinct difference in energy expended when I'm on a call with people who have low/zero background noise and decent-quality microphones, and others have noted that about me (as I'm also an audio engineer in my spa…

I had a colleague ask me of I had sound conditioning in my office and I felt so seen. Bad audio is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Absolutely. My office is in a basement. The walls are all 5/8" drywall with 3.5" of rockwool inside, plus 6" of rockwool in the rafters above the drop ceiling. And that's before I get to the sound treatment on the actual walls.

People lose their minds when they hear the raw recordings from the vocal booth that's directly behind my work desk. And it was just a closet before, outfitting it just wasn't that expensive.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#62

Post by gumballindie »

booleandilemma wrote: post #48
gumballindie wrote: post #28

Stop using zoom and stop holding endless meetings.

Unfortunately my present manager loves meetings. The worst part is after we get through the agenda he starts rambling about whatever topic is on his mind, like one of those old people you see at the supermarket who talk to the cashier and who are in obvious need of social interaction. The man doesn't know how to end a meeting.

I know that feeling. When I was managing remote engineers I made a point out of not holding meetings unless strictly necessary. Anything urgent could be raised on chat, and if devs felt the need for a meeting they’d hold it and optionally involve me as well. At some point even dailys were reduced to a morning message about the previous day and the current day.

Until a “scrum master” was brought in and the shit show started. However that role was quickly made redundant and things got back to normal - including productivity which stuttered for a while due to the aforementioned adventure.

In terms of tech we used whatever we felt was relevant. The client was a top 100 corpo, worldwide.

I find it slightly amusing when people confidently think that the only way to produce anything of value is by endless talking and hair splitting. I find that a sign of inexperience - which is fine if it doesnt become a virtue - or worse, i think in some that’s a sign or ladder climbing bullshit.

I know for a fact that if you trust the people you hired for being trustworthy and suitable for the role you will get couple of times more value from their work. And letting them work also tends to get more work done.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#63

Post by voisin »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #35
ajmurmann wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found the audio on phone calls awful. In addition, I cannot see who is on the call, there is no indicator who is speaking, no visual cues who is getting ready to step in. No ability to read the room because you cannot see anyone. It's just awful.

Since one of my friend groups now resides primarily online due to general diaspora, I'd say there are adaptions that make VoIP a lot better. Right off the bat, good quality VoIP calls are vastly better than phone calls, because the compression on phones combined with typically rather shitty audio equipment creates an environment where subtle tonal queues are completely absent. Discord's audio is fantastic, but so is…

> Secondly, there's some etiquette rules that people eventually pick up on: Leave pauses in your speech so that people can butt in, shut up if no one's responded verbally to you in while, and understand that there is an appropriate amount of talking over each other that is acceptable.

Many, many people don’t figure these out in real life.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#64

Post by methou »

While attending longer video conferences where I don't have to speak I just put my headset on and do something housework, like vacuuming the floors and some food prepping.

For those I have/want to talk, I feel that most difficult part is that it's hard to get into the conversation if it's hybrid, people attenuating in a meeting can easily use facial expression and/or body languages to indicate they want to interrupt or add something in it, while for us on the big screen, some of the people couldn't read the cue, unless someone virtually "raised a hand" with a binging sound.

My best experience with the meetings are the smaller ones that everyone has the camera on, speak in turn, giving feedback by using "raise a hand" button in a row, and don't take details offline. (around 60% of hour meetings are in this way - weekly).

One upside about larger video calls is that you can read participants expression without them realizing.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#65

Post by jakeinspace »

Kuinox wrote: post #22

There is something that I noticed quickly: The fatigue depend of the quality of the call. If someone in the call have a lot of background noise, have noisy environement, or a bad microphone, it takes a lot of mental energy to process what they say.

I just sat through a 3 hour french class that got moved onto teams last minute since the instructor is sick. 20 people who can barely communicate in french, unprepared, with crappy laptop microphones... I wanted to jump out the window then entire time.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#67

Post by thunky »

Gigachad wrote: post #60
selykg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because video off meetings are entirely pointless and just shouldn't be run. Not to say that turning video on magically makes the meetings have point, but if you are muted, video off, and doing the dishes, you just shouldn't be in that call. Requiring video on probably makes people push back against being invited to useless meetings rather than seeing it as an hour to clean the house.

> you just shouldn't be in that call

Exactly. But most of the time you don't have a choice.

So may as well do dishes.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#68

Post by Gigachad »

thunky wrote: post #67
Gigachad wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because video off meetings are entirely pointless and just shouldn't be run. Not to say that turning video on magically makes the meetings have point, but if you are muted, video off, and doing the dishes, you just shouldn't be in that call. Requiring video on probably makes people push back against being invited to useless meetings rather than seeing it as an hour to clean the house.

> you just shouldn't be in that call Exactly. But most of the time you don't have a choice. So may as well do dishes.

As an individual you may as well do dishes, but as a company you should believe that your meetings are actually important, and if they are, everyone should be present and video on. At least that way there will be pushback against useless meetings.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#69

Post by thunky »

wkat4242 wrote: post #18
hotnfresh wrote: post #7

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.

> the feeling of being together is so much stronger

I hope there will be a way to convert voice into a realistic behaving VR avatar, no equipment needed other than a mic.

For example if I say "ok John, I like that idea", my avatar automatically faces John and locks eyes.

For most of the meeting I'm not speaking anyway so my avatar could just look at whoever is speaking and look interested.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#70

Post by ehnto »

atlgator wrote: post #66

So you spend all afternoon in Zoom meetings, let's say back to back for 4 hours? How does that differ from in-person meetings? You're exhausted in either scenario.

For me personally it's information deficit and context dissonance that fatigues me.

When I am in a meeting room I see all the faces, I can tell what everyone is looking at and read their emotions from their movements etc. It's all subconscious though so I am not distracted by this process. I also know when I am not being looked at, and can relax some of my own social cues.

In an online meeting, I get none of that so I am working a bit harder to piece everyones contributions to the meeting together. I also have the dissonance of context, I am in a meeting here but also on my computer and in my house. You get good at it but you are fighting off distractions regardless.

Meetings are a pain regardless but I do find them less tiring in person.

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