From PsyPost:
New research provides evidence that videoconferences can be mentally exhausting, especially when participants don’t feel some sense of group belonging...
In the study, which included 55 employees in various fields, participants received nine hourly surveys every day for five consecutive working days in 2020. The participants completed a total of 1,746 surveys in total. Only about 7% of the participants didn’t report any signs of videoconference fatigue.
I think they were suffering from "survey fatigue" as much as "Zoom fatigue". Also, the obvious question is, why were they working in various fields? How to they get power and internet access? What happens when it rains?
The researchers also found that videoconference fatigue was lower in the morning but increased throughout the afternoon and early evening.
Yes, people get more tired as the day goes on.
Participants often attributed their videoconference fatigue to sustained attention. “I do feel more tired after videoconference meetings especially if my camera is on, because I feel that expectation to look at the camera all the time to pay attention,” one participant reported.
I always leave my camera on, it is the polite thing to do. But I minimise the Zoom/Teams/Skype/whatever screen so that I can look at the actual documents we are discussing and not worry about trying to read facial expressions or being otherwise distracted by angled shots of the rooms they are sitting in. That way I am not tempted to say things like "Why is there a naked woman/man* standing behind you?" and watch them turn round in shock.
* Use opposite gender to the person on the screen.
Compromised Already
35 minutes ago
2 comments:
“I do feel more tired after videoconference meetings especially if my camera is on, because I feel that expectation to look at the camera all the time to pay attention,”
"Whereas, in the old days, with physical meetings, I just used to sleep through them if they were boring and usually someone was kind enough to wake me at the end of the meeting, but not always."
B, I did once fall asleep in a meeting. The room was very warm, the chair was comfy, the speaker had a pleasant and re-assuring voice covering a boring topic. Recipe for disaster. I was rudely awoken when I started snoring.
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