Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans • Hacker News Board

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#71

Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #9

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…

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.

My problem is that in-office I'm going to zone out in 99 out of 100 of the micro conversations I get interrupted into per day.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#72

Post by randyrand » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

i think the latency is the biggest fatigue.

it’s constantly making our brains annoyed.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#73

Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

I dunno, my baseline is I've worked on global teams for 90% of my career going back nearly 2 decades at this point. Zoom is better than phone, and I was never going to be in the same office as these people anyway..

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#74

Post by saila » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:19 AM UTC

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…

I'm typically looking at the top half of one person's head, the side of a few other people's, and probably up someone's nose. Any time there's eye contact, it's extremely bizarre/unsettling.

The idea that having cameras on will convey body language like in person conversations seems patently false, partly because of the above and partly because most people moderate their expressions to an extreme while on camera.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#75

Post by jghn » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:25 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #26

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…

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.

Yeah, while I don't love videoconferencing I love the shift to it from audio conference calls. I was never able to stay focused without the visual cues and would wind up drifting off pretty quick.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#76

Post by Calamitous » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

kcb wrote: post #57

aaronscott wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During a job interview I was asked to teach something off the cuff. There were two interviewers in the meeting, so I decided to show the difference that a good mic with good placement can have on call quality. Switched from my nice mic that was one shaka[0] away, to the laptop mic that was about two arm lengths away (maybe 8 shaka’s). They were shocked at the difference and one asked “is that what I sound like right…

All you really need is a proper headset with boom mic. Either USB or one with a proprietary dongle because 2-way bluetooth audio sounds terrible. I would think it's pretty common for companies to issue everyone a headset these days.

My company issued everyone headsets, and the audio is night-and-day difference, but maaaaaaan I hate wearing a headset.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#77

Post by Banditoz » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:29 AM UTC

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…

> Discord's audio is fantastic, but so is Mumble's, a FOSS VoIP solution, so I have no idea how big companies like Microsoft can't figure it out.

Oh Microsoft figured it out. They just made the quality subtly worse vs Zoom. Jumping from a Zoom meeting to a Teams one, especially with the same people, amplifies this a bit.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#78

Post by sellmesoap » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #26

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…

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.

I enjoyed working at a place that used teamspeak as the tool for conference calls, it showed who's talking. Announced joiners etc. Kept me from needing a long distance plan, kept out of the way, was snappy. It reminded me of my early days playing video games with friends, maybe the nostalgia added to the charm, I'd recommend it!

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#79

Post by lotsoweiners » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:52 AM UTC

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…

At my job we use Teams and very few people ever have their camera on. This situation is perfect for me since a lot of my meetings are relatively irrelevant to what I do. My wife’s work uses the Google video chat equivalent and the majority of her meetings have most people on camera. It just looks so strange to have a wall of people nodding in agreement at whatever the speaker is saying.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#80

Post by BigJono » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 2:57 AM UTC

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.

People that schedule meetings like that don't want pushback. They're not trying to optimise the list of people in the meeting, they're trying to grow it at the expense of everything else.

They genuinely believe that whatever they're crapping on about to a brick wall for 2 hours straight is the most important thing in the universe and they want your undivided attention, productivity or profit be damned. That's why they force people to turn their cameras on.