Fighting Zoom Fatigue: Virtual Meetings Can Take Their Toll!

With Claire Barnes (Clinical Psychology Resident)

Our relationship with Zoom (FaceTime, Skype and Teams) is like most other relationships ... it’s complicated. And it’s becoming more so by the day.

Why? Because, while many of us feel extremely grateful and lucky that video conferencing/calls allow us to continue to work from home and communicate with family and friends while social distancing, all this virtual connectedness is leaving us feeling exhausted.

Why is something that is so beneficial in many ways also so draining? Is this just general fatigue brought on by all the additional stressors of living during a pandemic or is there more to it?

Turns out, we have good reason to feel exhausted.

Hard work
When engaging through a platform like Zoom, we work a lot harder than we do in-person to read all the non-verbal cues we normally absorb in a very easy and automatic way. Without access to certain body language and other non-verbal cues, it takes a lot more effort to accurately read and understand the person on the screen. Even with a good internet connection, it’s impossible to read all the microexpressions usually guiding our interpretations and understanding when we communicate.

Additionally, a certain amount of visual blurring and distortion is inevitable when communicating through a screen. Add to that the small (or sometimes large) lags in audio that can give the conversation a very unnatural rhythm, leaving our brains scrambling to interpret and respond accurately.

Research has also found that even slight delays in audio can make people seem less friendly and less engaged in the conversation. For someone who struggles with social anxiety, this could contribute to a more negative interpretation of the interaction. On top of that, some people can have technology-related anxiety leading to ups and downs in their energy levels when they engage through that medium, leaving them further drained.

There’s a reason we don’t eat in front of a mirror
Another aspect of Zoom calls that increase our effort and divide our focus can be the distraction of seeing ourselves on screen. People can be distracted by their own image, checking-in to see how they are physically appearing. This can be especially difficult for people that have a heightened sense of self-consciousness about their appearance.

Wearing all the hats
Our sense of self is made up of multiple identities and roles. Many of those identities have now merged in a way not previously experienced. It can be jarring to our sense of identity to be in a work role and suddenly have your parent identity glimpsed as your toddler runs naked behind you and across the screen. A more intimate side of ourselves is being revealed and that can leave us scrambling to maintain a professional demeanor.

Tantrums and tears
As any parent probably knows, transitions between activities can be one of the most difficult times for children and often lead to tantrums and tears. Adults are no different. Changing mental gears from one role to another takes some adjustment. Normally, a commute between work and home provides the time we need for that adjustment but, now, we can end a work call and jump into a friend’s virtual happy hour without leaving the chair. Not having this time to shift gears can add to our fatigue.

Great expectations
Finally, expectations are everything. Zoom can be great for connecting us on the weekends to those that live far away from us, but it’s not an equal replacement for face-to-face contact, and the difference between those two can feel more significant the longer we go without the real thing. This increasing disappointment can leave us feeling burned out on Zoom.