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A theory of Zoom fatigue

theconvivialsociety.substack.com

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Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#61

Post by kqr »

xioxox wrote: post #31
lostdog wrote: post #18

Lots of normal things about human interaction are broken in Zoom meetings. * You can't have a normal conversation with that much delay. Every time you talk you're probably interrupting someone, and that starts to wear on you. * You can't have any side chats with your neighbors before and after the meeting, making everyone seem less like a person. * You can't tell who's looking at you, so you always feel like you have…

In our (academic) meetings, people generally default to switching off their camera when there's more than a handful of participants. I find this much less stressful. I can also do some physical activity which helps concentration if I'm just listening.

It also puts a lot less pressure on the network connections involved when they aren't also loaded with 8 real-time video streams.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#62

Post by justincormack »

ken wrote: post #29
djsumdog wrote: post #6

I 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…

They also played back a part of your own voice into your own earpiece, which helps make it sound like you’re in the same place. Zoom does not (at least AFAIK), so I have no way to judge if I’m speaking at an appropriate volume.

It doesn’t due to potential echo but you can set this up yourself with most headsets or with a mic and mixer; you need to with headphones that shut out your voice or you will shout to compensate.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#63

Post by blackrock »

fxtentacle wrote: post #45

I think the main cause of stress and fatigue is that you have to be presentable all the time. I put a sticker over my camera and I bought a headset with a hardware mute switch (so that it doesn't show) and now I can phase out just like I'd do in a regular meeting :)

I recommend a camera cover slider. This one works great.

It gives me some sense of physical security that hackers can’t penetrate the camera, or corporate can’t spy on me, since they’re now installing desktop screen capture spyware on your laptops. They can probably spy on you by stealthily activating the microphone, but that’s a different problem.

https://www.amazon.com/0-027in-MacBook-Smartphone-Protecting...

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#64

Post by jpalomaki »

ken wrote: post #33

I’m surprised this didn’t mention the elephant in the room: the audio quality is terrible. I simply can’t hear half of what is said, even at full volume in a quiet room. Either I ask for repetition all the time (and walk over whatever the next person said), or I assume it from context and let it go. Even when I can pick up all the sounds, it’s so different from hearing voice in person that I have to concentrate just…

The problem is most likely caused by the other party not using a headset. Even the cheap ones result in much better sound quality than the laptop microphone. Another factor can be lack of bandwidth.

Audio quality in Zoom itself is superb according to my experience. Webex is applying some heavy compression. Teams is closer to Zoom, but not as good.

And I would say the root cause is people not knowing how bad they sound. Others don't complain, because they don't want to spend time debugging one participants audio setup. It would help if all the conferencing tools would provide easy to use tools for testing your setup (record message, play it back). Maybe one could even offer (as an option) a forced audio check before you can join the meeting.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#65

Post by 7777fps »

sudosteph wrote: post #14

Any other Autism Spectrum or ADHD people who feel less fatigued by video meetings compared to IRL? The things I like: - having the range of activity during a meeting constrained to one area in front of me so I don't have to look around the room to make sure I'm not missing something / get overstimulated by too much stuff happening. - Boxes with borders lighting up when someone is making noise / talking so I know wher…

Yeah pretty much, having names against people is fantastic.

I also don't particularly notice any increased lag, perhaps I'm normally operating at a verbal or social lag and zoom normalizes it down to my level?

Also, can hide video and pace around without bothering people.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#66

Post by Cthulhu_ »

justincormack wrote: post #62
ken wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also played back a part of your own voice into your own earpiece, which helps make it sound like you’re in the same place. Zoom does not (at least AFAIK), so I have no way to judge if I’m speaking at an appropriate volume.

It doesn’t due to potential echo but you can set this up yourself with most headsets or with a mic and mixer; you need to with headphones that shut out your voice or you will shout to compensate.

I tend to put my headphones on only halfway, also to catch anything going on in the background (noise cancelling headphones + my back is to the bedroom door).

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#67

Post by ansgri »

sudosteph wrote: post #14

Any other Autism Spectrum or ADHD people who feel less fatigued by video meetings compared to IRL? The things I like: - having the range of activity during a meeting constrained to one area in front of me so I don't have to look around the room to make sure I'm not missing something / get overstimulated by too much stuff happening. - Boxes with borders lighting up when someone is making noise / talking so I know wher…

For me the main benefit is linearization of the conversation: people understand the limitations of the medium and interrupt each other less frequently, so it’s much easier to both follow and join the conversation without monitoring the nonverbal interactions in the room. That’s what makes teleconferencing with multiple people much less fatiguing to me than real meetings. Assuming known people and no video, of course — only screen share please.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#68

Post by Cthulhu_ »

sudosteph wrote: post #14

Any other Autism Spectrum or ADHD people who feel less fatigued by video meetings compared to IRL? The things I like: - having the range of activity during a meeting constrained to one area in front of me so I don't have to look around the room to make sure I'm not missing something / get overstimulated by too much stuff happening. - Boxes with borders lighting up when someone is making noise / talking so I know wher…

My girlfriend has ADHD and possibly autism (she's getting assessed for it soonish), she's outright refused to switch her classes to be done over video - having to strain to hear / understand (it's a language class too), background noises, visual and auditory distractions. She explicitly went and paid extra for classroom sessions just to limit the distractions from online classes.

Not saying you're wrong (of course you're not, your experiences are not mine to judge), just providing a counter-anecdote.

Personally I don't really mind either way; with IRL meetings it varies, there's ones where I'm more an observer where I mainly tend to fall asleep, and there's the stand-ups which are fine outside of other people not in the meeting speaking up (we've had to shush them on more than one occasion). That last happened a few years ago though.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#69

Post by amelius »

StefanKarpinski wrote: post #7
djsumdog wrote: post #6

I 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.

I get a similar kind of exhaustion when talking to assistants like Siri.

Re: A theory of Zoom fatigue

#70

Post by osdiab »

djsumdog wrote: post #6

I 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…

Anyone have suggestions for the lowest latency VoIP providers?
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