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           Stanford Research Explains and Helps Prevent Zoom Fatigue

   Adam Engst

   Zoom fatigue. We all know it's a real thing'it's exhausting to spend
   more than an hour or so in a videoconference, and for many people
   working and attending school from home, those video sessions can go for
   six or more hours per day. Jeremy Bailenson of the Stanford Virtual
   Human Interaction Lab has now identified [1]four reasons why video
   chats are so tiring, and he offers suggestions for avoiding their worst
   effects. In short:
    1. Close-up eye contact is intense. You'd never be so close to
       someone's face in real life, so try using gallery view and reducing
       the size of the window. Talking postage stamps are less likely to
       make you feel like someone is up in your face.
    2. Looking at yourself is stressful. Staring at yourself in a
       mirror'and worrying if you look OK'for hours per day would cause
       insanity, and yet that's what we do in many videoconferencing
       platforms. Once you've verified that you're properly framed and
       have brushed your hair for the day, hide your preview or switch to
       a view that doesn't include it.
    3. Sitting still is hard. When meeting in person or talking on the
       phone, we move around, even if it's just adjusting position in a
       chair. Keeping yourself framed in a video window dramatically
       reduces your mobility, so try turning off your video at times or
       positioning your camera such that you can fidget or pace as you
       would in person.
    4. Video chats have a high cognitive load. Videoconferencing
       encourages all sorts of odd behaviors that require some level of
       active thought. For instance, keeping yourself framed in the video
       chat, using a thumbs-up to indicate silent approval, and trying to
       interpret everyone else's reactions all require cognitive
       processing that doesn't come naturally. The solution is to give
       yourself an audio-only break, both sending and receiving, so you
       can let your brain rest.

   Read the full article for more details, plus an encouragement to
   [2]participate in a study of the new Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue Scale,
   which aims to measure how much fatigue people experience in the
   workplace from videoconferencing. The results from the study could help
   videoconferencing companies change their apps to make them less
   exhausting.

   Photo by [3]Chris Montgomery on [4]Unsplash

   [5]Read original article

References

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   1. https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/
   2. https://comm.stanford.edu/ZEF
   3. https://unsplash.com/@cwmonty?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText
   4. https://unsplash.com/s/photos/zoom?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText
   5. https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/

   Hidden links:
   6. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2021/04/Zoom-meeting.jpg

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