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

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#81

Post by thunky » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 3:10 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #68

thunky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If I attend a meeting every day while I'm doing the dishes and my employer can't tell, then my employer has already failed your test.

There is no point in pushing back in this case. They just don't care about running an effective meeting.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#82

Post by pllbnk » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 3:28 AM UTC

So is live meeting fatigue. Recently I had to spend a few days in the office (I work remotely, so thankfully it's at most 10 days a year) and I must say I never felt so tired while working from home or having even long calls over Zoom.

What I am trying to say is that probably fatigue comes from getting disengaged. If you're participating and you find meaning in what you're doing, it doesn't really matter over what medium it's done. But sure, if you have to stare at your screen while knowing that you're being broadcast to your colleagues and the call is irrelevant to you, of course you will feel tired. In the office meeting room you can at least pretend you are doing some important stuff while scrolling at your laptop or phone.

Organizations should embrace asynchronous communication and whatever meetings need to be done, it should be ensured that only relevant parties are participating.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#83

Post by lbourdages » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 3:35 AM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #72

i think the latency is the biggest fatigue. it’s constantly making our brains annoyed.

It's so difficult to intervene at just the right time.

When you're in person, you can just immediately start talking after whoever was talking stops. There are rarely conflicts about two people starting talking at the same time. The nonverbal cues also help everyone see who'll be responding.

In Zoom, you start as soon as your audio and video feed tells you to, but by then someone else has started talking, which leads to the infamous "sorry, go ahead" ritual. It's annoying. The more people there are, the worse it is.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#84

Post by nunez » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 4:49 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.

Headsets are fine but many of the folks wearing them call in, which completely negates their benefit. Also, they're uncomfortable IMO

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#85

Post by Threeve303 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 4:53 AM UTC

Remember when everyone called it video conferencing?

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#86

Post by nunez » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 4:56 AM UTC

sesm wrote: post #17

What can a person do to make Zoom calls less exhausting for themselves? I would be happy to hear any tips.

- Take a long break during the day

- Take short breaks throughout the day, like getting coffee/water, etc.

- Turn off self view!

- If you code, try to cluster your meetings together to reduce context switching. Block focus time on your calendar to avoid drive-by meetings that break up these clusters.

- Invest in good headphones and a good mic. Others might have bad sound quality but you definitely won't. Also, it will be easier to hear others even if they have bad sq

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#87

Post by nunez » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 4:58 AM UTC

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.

You're basically talking to yourself for four hours

That sucks

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#88

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

johnfn wrote: post #36

marginalia_nu wrote: post #6

It's a weird notion that experiences only are real when they show up in brain scans.

Eh, it's somewhat forgivable. How on earth are you going to get a headline like "Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to My Experience" to work? If I posted that onto HN, I'd get 100 people telling me that actually, remote is fine and just as good as in-person, if not better.

[deleted]

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#89

Post by decafninja » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:24 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.

Because many meetings that involve many people are entirely pointless for the majority invited, period, regardless of format.

Many of the people for whom the meeting is pointless are usually in no position to push back on it.

Re: Zoom Fatigue Is Real, According to Brain Scans

#90

Post by vladvasiliu » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:26 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.

You'd be surprised. At work we get some nice-ish jabra headsets and most people wear them.

But I regularly have to take calls with people from other companies, and one in particular comes to mind where some dude never ever wears a proper headset, or doesn't know how to configure it or something [0]. We can always hear the people around him going about their business.

Then there's also the fact that people insist on using bluetooth headsets and wifi, so the audio goes in and out when it doesn't sound like a robot.

---

[0] I've complained once to somebody about being unable to hear them. They said they were wearing a headset, but, as it turned out, Teams was using the laptop's integrated mic instead.