Zoom fatigue: how to avoid getting tired during video con­fer­ences

The use of video con­fer­enc­ing apps has increased rapidly due in large part to the coro­n­avirus pandemic. However, while employers may find virtual meetings a good way to keep business running as usual, many employees find them to be a burden.

Keep reading to find out what the recently rec­og­nized phe­nom­e­non of Zoom fatigue is all about, including its causes, and what you can do to avoid it.

The ex­haus­tion that comes with back-to-back meetings is nothing new. When many people started working from home at the beginning of the coro­n­avirus crisis, most workers assumed they would be attending fewer meetings and that a couple of online con­fer­enc­ing calls wouldn’t cause too much stress. They perhaps pictured sitting com­fort­ably at home, joining a meeting with a few clicks, and par­tic­i­pat­ing without even putting on their dress shoes. However, it quickly became clear that online meetings can cause stress and ex­haus­tion.

As public discourse on the topic increased, a term for this phe­nom­e­non emerged: Zoom fatigue.

Zoom is one of the most common tools for video con­fer­enc­ing and lends its name to the phe­nom­e­non. But Zoom fatigue isn’t limited to calls made with Zoom – the same kind of ex­haus­tion has been observed on calls with other video con­fer­enc­ing software. The term thus describes the ex­haus­tion that comes from video con­fer­ences in general.

At this point, there are few studies worldwide on the effects of video con­fer­enc­ing on employees’ physical and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being. Many current as­sess­ments are based on anecdotal evidence and the moods captured in the media.

One study coming out of Germany (Lud­wigshafen Uni­ver­si­ty of Business and Society) offers a first glimpse at some ex­per­i­men­tal results. The study examined how common Zoom fatigue is among German office workers, finding that 60% of re­spon­dents are familiar with the phe­nom­e­non and 15% con­sis­tent­ly suffered from it.

The study also offers insight into the symptoms of Zoom fatigue, in­di­cat­ing that it goes beyond pure ex­haus­tion or tiredness. Par­tic­i­pants in the study reported the following symptoms:

• Dif­fi­cul­ty con­cen­trat­ing
• In­creas­ing im­pa­tience and ir­ri­tabil­i­ty
• Headaches and back pain
• Aching limbs and stomach aches

As a result of fatigue, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and the quality of work decreases, and the like­li­hood of making mistakes increases.

With just 422 par­tic­i­pants, the study is not highly rep­re­sen­ta­tive. However, from a psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive it’s quite easy to explain why video con­fer­ences are so straining.

Video con­fer­enc­ing software is a practical tool, but virtual meetings come with a number of new psy­cho­log­i­cal chal­lenges for par­tic­i­pants.

Video con­fer­ences have the advantage of dis­play­ing gestures and facial ex­pres­sions, but our field of vision is nonethe­less limited. Depending on how someone’s camera has been set up, it can be difficult to read facial ex­pres­sions. And in meetings with a large number of par­tic­i­pants, it’s hardly possible to gauge everyone’s reactions.

Body language, eye contact, and the position of the speaker in the room are all non-verbal cues that help people to make sense of what is being said. In online meetings, our brain is con­stant­ly working to com­pen­sate for this missing in­for­ma­tion. This kind of effort has been demon­strat­ed to cause ex­haus­tion, as shown in a study from 2008.

You’ll rarely see a mirror hanging in a con­fer­ence room, and there’s a good reason for that: Many people have a difficult time seeing them­selves in the mirror. But in online meetings, you con­stant­ly see live footage of yourself among all of the other par­tic­i­pants. This increases self-awareness and with it self-criticism. Par­tic­i­pants may get insecure and start to question them­selves. They check whether, for example, their clothes are in order and they look pro­fes­sion­al. These musings not only con­tribute to Zoom fatigue but also take attention away from the actual content of the meeting.

Despite high-speed internet and fiber-optic networks, you will always ex­pe­ri­ence delays and lags in video con­fer­ences. One study found that even a one-second delay places strain on the human brain. And it doesn’t stop there: Delays also cause us to view our con­ver­sa­tion partners as less attentive, con­sci­en­tious, and ex­tro­vert­ed.

Re­gard­less of whether there are technical dif­fi­cul­ties, simply com­mu­ni­cat­ing about tools such as video con­fer­enc­ing leads to less trust and mutual un­der­stand­ing between people. This was demon­strat­ed in a study that looked at the treatment of asylum seekers at Canadian im­mi­gra­tion offices.

In addition, it’s not possible to make direct eye contact with others when video chatting – to do so you’d have to look into the camera, which means that you’re not looking into the eyes of the other person. But direct eye contact is important for building trust and signaling that you’re paying attention.

Whether con­scious­ly or un­con­scious­ly, people try to com­pen­sate for these short­com­ings on the non-verbal level in order to create a quality in­ter­per­son­al in­ter­ac­tion. This kind of mental work leads to ex­haus­tion and ul­ti­mate­ly to Zoom fatigue.

At an in-person meeting, it’s almost im­pos­si­ble to in­con­spic­u­ous­ly check your emails, make ap­point­ments, or send out messages while your co-worker discusses a project. However, if you’re already sitting at your computer for a Zoom call, it’s easy to open up another window or type on your keyboard without anyone noticing. During longer meetings, par­tic­i­pants tend to use their time to get other things done on the side. The idea is to increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, but this kind of mul­ti­task­ing is taxing and decreases the quality of one’s work.

In trying to limit Zoom fatigue on your team, it helps to check how many online meetings are really necessary. Does every team member need to take part in every meeting? Would a single weekly meeting suffice, in which all topics are discussed at once?

If you can’t reduce the number of video con­fer­ences, you should at least try to limit their length. Experts recommend holding meetings for a maximum of 45 minutes and sched­ul­ing them so that par­tic­i­pants have a break of at least 15 minutes before their next com­mit­ment. This way, the brain has a chance to recover a bit from the digital overload.

Video con­fer­ences are often the default medium for meeting remotely. But in many cases, they’re not the best format.

If your goal is simply to convey in­for­ma­tion and if the par­tic­i­pants already know each other well, a telephone con­fer­ence will probably lead to better results. That way, people can focus on the content of the call and lose less energy analyzing non-verbal input from co-workers, or worrying about their own ap­pear­ance.

Video con­fer­ences, on the other hand, are a better idea when the goal is for people to get to know each other or when the personal level is par­tic­u­lar­ly important. In such cases, a video call is the closest re­place­ment for in-person in­ter­ac­tion. If you take the right things into con­sid­er­a­tion, you can also plan suc­cess­ful meetings online.

Remote work will surely remain an important part of the working world, even after the effects of the pandemic have subsided. This means that Zoom fatigue will continue to present a challenge for companies that want to ef­fec­tive­ly manage their teams.

Busi­ness­es should try to un­der­stand the chal­lenges that come with video con­fer­ences and ap­pre­ci­ate that they aren’t solely the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of in­di­vid­ual employees. Instead, companies would be well advised to introduce clear standards for the or­ga­ni­za­tion of their teams. This creates security for decision makers, strength­ens the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the company, and supports the health of employees – a win-win-win situation.