What's the evidence for this? I believe there is a psychological effect that people report more malaise when you ask them about it. Back when I first studied psychology I self-diagnosed myself with like 5 different mental defects. Confirmation bias and hypochondriasis?
There is no question that auditory fatigue is real. The question is only to what extent poor audio is a contributing factor to "Zoom Fatigue".
A data point from the BBC article: "One 2014 study by German academics showed that delays on phone or conferencing systems shaped our views of people negatively: even delays of 1.2 seconds made people perceive the responder as less friendly or focused."
[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/coronavir...
[2] https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom-fatigue
[3] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video...
My team is spread throughout the US and for a few years now my professional life was wall to wall Google Hangouts/Meet. It's been largely business as usual for us.
I wouldn't say there aren't other factors. General anxiety about ones health and paycheck, parents are now largely unpaid teachers, 24/7 news coverage of generally bad news.
It probably all adds up and we just blame it on technology. 5g towers, video games and now Zoom.