Many of us spend several hours a day making video calls with colleagues or friends. Undoubtedly, for many, Zoom has become a salvation amid quarantine restrictions – but long video calls also have their negative sides. For example, they can cause severe fatigue.
In 2020, we faced Zoom fatigue. Jeremy Bailenson, a communications professor and founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory, decided to investigate the phenomenon and in February 2021 published an article on the psychological consequences of long and frequent video calls.
Bailenson emphasizes that his goal was not to paint video calling platforms in a bad light – he himself uses them often and recognizes their need – but to explain why certain features of these platforms make their users so tired, and to suggest possible amendments for them. interfaces to facilitate the video calling experience and reduce the negative impact.
The end of the Zoom era: how the main service of the pandemic survives allegations of data breaches and the invention of a vaccine against coronavirus
He was able to identify four features of the video service that contribute to the appearance of fatigue from communication through Zoom. He also suggests possible solutions.
Abundance of eye contact
During a video call, we all the time look at each other, and the size of our faces is increased by getting closer to the camera. This amount of eye contact is unnatural for us, accustomed to the fact that during normal conversations, we, among other things, look around or at our notes. In the video chat grid, everyone is looking at everyone, not just the speaker – you can keep silent for the entire call, but they will still look you in the face. Such a system increases the volume of eye contact at times, and with it the social anxiety that people often experience, becoming the center of everyone’s attention.
During video calls, the face of the interlocutor, be it a colleague or a stranger, is too close to us
The unnaturalness of the process is aggravated by the increased scale of the faces of the interlocutors, which we see on our monitors. According to Beilenson, in most cases, during video calls, the face of the interlocutor, be it a colleague or a stranger, is too close to us. In ordinary conversation, this closeness implies an intimate conversation, and our brain tensely perceives the lack of personal space. As a result, we spend many hours at Zoom in a state of exhausting hyperexcitation.
To make the process easier, Beilenson advises turning off full-screen mode during calls, reducing the size of the window with the faces of the interlocutors and using an external keyboard, providing more space between yourself and the monitor.
The need to constantly see yourself when you call
According to Beilenson, all the time watching yourself in a cell during a call is like doing your daily business, making decisions, receiving and giving criticism, and engaging in conversations while you are forced to look in the mirror. It’s unnatural, distracting and tiring.
In addition, many studies show that, when looking at our reflection, we are more critical of ourselves, while many people who use video services to make calls have to look at themselves for several hours a day. To facilitate your daily communication, Beilenson advises turning off the option to show your own camera after you make sure that you are correctly positioned in the frame.
Don’t feel like a work function: how we have changed over the year with the coronavirus
Limited mobility
During a video call, we have to constantly be motionless in the frame, although during a normal conversation or call we can remain in motion. Forced immobility is unnatural for conversations and tiresome.
As a way out of the situation, Beilenson suggests organizing the workspace in such a way as to stimulate movement: use an external keyboard and camera so as not to be too tied to the computer, create a distance between yourself and the camera.
Increased cognitive load
In an ordinary conversation face to face, people communicate, including non-verbal, using gestures and movements, subconsciously interpreting the behavior of the interlocutor. During a video call, you have to work much harder to send and receive these non-verbal signals – for example, to gesticulate more actively.
It is not always possible to correctly understand other people’s gestures or changes on the face of the interlocutor, who may react to something happening behind the scenes. All of this increases the cognitive load.
Bailenson suggests turning off the camcorder from time to time during long calls to take a break from non-verbal activity and turn away from the screen, without burdening oneself with the flow of complex gestures of the interlocutor that have to be interpreted.
How often do you feel too tired for other activities after a video call?
In response to a request from many organizations, including schools and state-owned enterprises, in order to better understand how to facilitate the process of video calls, Stanford researchers developed a scale for the level of fatigue from work video calls – to calculate it, you need to answer 15 questions. Over the past year, the questionnaire has been tested on more than 500 people. It includes questions about the different aspects of fatigue caused by video calls: general, physical, social, emotional and motivational.
Staff turnover and alienation: what’s wrong with telecommuting
For example, there are questions like:
- How tired do you feel after a video call?
- How irritated are your eyes after a video call?
- How often do you try to avoid social interactions after a video call?
- How emotionally devastated are you after a video call?
- How often do you feel too tired for other activities after a video call?
Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, expects the survey results to help analyze how video chatting technologies affect their users, and then make changes to the functionality of these technologies to reduce the stress levels they cause. Understanding the mechanisms of video conferencing will help us figure out the best ways to work with them in different circumstances and with different types of calls, he said.
