On a video call, we don’t have access to all of those natural cues. Our brain works harder looking for nonverbal cues that aren’t there. We also have to spend more energy giving off cues—whether it’s a thumbs up on screen or motioning more dramatically than we would in person.

The survey also showed that people of color tended to report higher Zoom fatigue than white people, although the effect is much smaller than the difference accounted for by gender. An ongoing global health crisis certainly doesn’t help things. One hard part about Zoom meetings is the expectation of professionalism. There can be a lot of pressure to commit to every meeting and task due to the false equivalence of being at home meaning “not working,” but we all know that’s not the case. There are always going to be meetings that you can’t get out of attending, but there are also ones that you can most definitely pass on .

If you can, she recommends building in a buffer between Zoom calls to let yourself regroup. When you’re not the one sharing your computer screen on a call, it can be really tempting to check email and take care of other seemingly mindless tasks. The problem is that multitasking overloads your already-stressed brain, making it harder to keep up with what’s going on in your Zoom and exacerbating the fatigue you feel afterward. Many organizations have reached Stanford communication researchers for guidelines on video conferencing.

Intense eye contact is tiring.Locking eyes with your colleagues to show that you’re paying attention can feel demanding. Short of making concerted eye contact throughout much of the meeting, your co-workers might think your attention is flagging. Async communication happens in writing, instead of in-person. It’s a great way to keep remote and hybrid teams in sync without having to meet for a video chat. It also has the added benefit of improving access to information and creating a written record of all your team’s progress and accomplishments.

Given how exhausting it can be to invest in the cognitive demands of video conferencing communication, folks would benefit from scheduling in short breaks for themselves. Many families and workplaces are continuing to rely on virtual meetings or family webcam hangouts. This kind of social interaction can be mentally tiring, so it's important to alleviate stress to keep that fatigue at bay.

Are you so busy meeting that you have trouble getting your work done? Here are the top signs that your organization is addicted to meetings. If you sat in a conference room and your colleague sat opposite, just staring into your eyes, you probably wouldn’t be pleased. You’d probably leave that meeting, bolt the door, call security and seriously wonder whether your boss hired Patrick Bateman.

https://whooshcall.com/blog/zoom-fatigue