A theory of Zoom fatigue
theconvivialsociety.substack.com
A theory of Zoom fatigue
1–10 of 213 posts
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#2First time I've heard of this and it's not something I experience at all. I do not find video conferences more exhausting than in-person meetings - if anything maybe even the opposite.
One factor than can make it more tiring is poor connectivity and audio to the point where it becomes an effort to interpret what others are saying/making oneself understood. Other than that I think it's just a matter of what one is accustomed to.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#3[deleted]
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#4> having to remain relatively still in front of a camera
If you video conference from your phone or laptop then you can move around.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#5For one-on-one videoconferencing meetings with normal latency (e.g. within 3-4 time zones), I find zero fatigue or problems like this.
The only "fatigue" I find is frustration when people are talking over each other or multiple people trying to jump in at the same time. This generally happens either when latency is bad (e.g. US-Japan), connections are bad generally (MS Office decides to auto-update in the background and saturate your download), or just when it's a particularly contentious meeting with lots of people trying to get a word in edgewise, and all the normal cues you use to figure out when to talk just aren't there. And the reasons for those all seem self-evident.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#6I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag!
Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that cancellation stuff and you feel like the conversation is split into pieces .. like a walkie-talkie where you don't control the "over" / button press.
Cellphones have gotten better, but they've never really hit the latency of landlines (or maybe they have and I didn't notice. I never actually talk to people on my phone any more). Video conferencing like that that but worse. It's really apparent if you're on a remote team and you're next to someone on the same call. You can hear that delay.
I like a lot of the fatigue comes from that delay. We can connect more people now, with video, over great distances, but it does come at a cost at moving from virtual dedicated circuits to package switches networks and transcoding on some central server.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#7I don't know about those theories. I suspect something else. Do you remember landlines, and how responsive they were? You would say things back and fourth and the conversation just worked, even on three-way and conference calls? There was very little noticeable lag! Even in the early cellphone days, I'd often prefer using my landline. There was less lag. Cellphones felt like speakerphones where it tries to do that ca…
That and you’re constantly struggling to decipher audio and make yourself understood. Much like talking in a bar that’s too loud is exhausting. A lot of the exhaustion seems like it’s the difficulty of compensating for a high latency, low-bandwidth, low quality experience. We’re just not evolved for it—reality is the opposite of all of those things.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#8First time I've heard of this and it's not something I experience at all. I do not find video conferences more exhausting than in-person meetings - if anything maybe even the opposite. One factor than can make it more tiring is poor connectivity and audio to the point where it becomes an effort to interpret what others are saying/making oneself understood. Other than that I think it's just a matter of what one is acc…
I have more freedom when I'm online that meeting in person.
The few times online meetings are stressing, IMO, are the same that would make me mad in person: people who keep talking without allowing interventions, people who don't what to say and just pretend to say things, people who have bad latency (yes, that take some seconds before speaking)
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#9First time I've heard of this and it's not something I experience at all. I do not find video conferences more exhausting than in-person meetings - if anything maybe even the opposite. One factor than can make it more tiring is poor connectivity and audio to the point where it becomes an effort to interpret what others are saying/making oneself understood. Other than that I think it's just a matter of what one is acc…
I also find meetings via Zoom less draining, in general, than in-person meetings.
Maybe this is why:
> This, too, amounts to a persistent expenditure of social and cognitive labor as I inadvertently mind my image as well as the images of the other participants.
If I understand the author correctly, if they don't have a constant image of themselves presented to them, they aren't constantly processing how they look to others(!)? Well, in that case, I can see why Zoom would be more draining, but, you know, welcome to my world in any situation except when I'm alone or only with my SO.
Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue
#10Meetings are exhausting, Zoom or no Zoom. I’ve noticed no difference and I’m on at least 3/day.