'Zoom fatigue' may take toll on the brain and the heart
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I get exhausted. Partly, it’s because I have a standing desk.
I work at it all day, but I’m constantly moving around, like leaning on the desk, walking away for a minute, etc.
In a Zoom meeting, I need to be a “talking head.” Very little movement.
It rewards staying still.
I got used to that, back in the 1990s, when we would ISDN to Japan.
I've literally, been videoconferencing, longer than some folks around here, have been alive.
If it's cameras-on I don't want to distract anybody with my antics.
However work is a completely different context. First, the ability to meet quickly and resolve issues synchronously is generally better on zoom than trying to get everyone into a room, especially in any modern company with more than one location. Everyone being on zoom rather than a floating head on the screen watching the back of everyone’s head is vastly worse than everyone on zoom. Second, the meetings don’t degenerate into social hour but typically stay on point. Third, I can look things up and read materials as the meeting goes without sitting staring at my computer or phone during a meeting that’s degenerating into a social hour.
Zoom fatigue as it’s called it probably nothing more than trying to retain dry content with distractions - definitely in front of the computer there’s a lot of stuff to distract from the talking head and the talking head isn’t that compelling. In person they dominate your mental and social world by construction. But in meetings that’s not necessary not necessarily optimal for best decision making. And if you don’t need to be there and the content is boring and pointless you can zone out.
Here's the free link: https://wapo.st/3QTGLHS
Here's the actual study cited, minus the "news" regurgitation, suggestive language, and interpretation:
Easely solved by using speakers.
Any drawback is offset by being able to zone out during boring meetings. By a long shot, I feel.
If it's turned off, then I don't have to put with this crap that most people do, that is meetings for the sake of meetings. On the other hand, the actual meetings where we meet with one or two colleagues and we work on blockers etc. are extremely useful, engaging, and instead of fatigue I feel satisfaction. (Maybe because instead of my face, I show my screen).
A good manager becomes a student and servant of their own team. Anyone who doesn't want to do this needs to find another place to work. Just because we work from home doesn't mean we don't work.
GPT seems to have a good sense when something is ambiguous. I bet it could also be made to make future projections mapped to dates.
Feels like this may be an AI agent in the near future..
P.S. Startup idea?
I think humans are still miles ahead in being able to spot a lie that will derail a project. If you force people to work under an equally incompetent AI middle manager, prepare to see them quit in a mass exodus for somewhere that doesn't. Nobody (except naive college grads) is going to risk getting fired or having their career ruined by an over-glorified cost-cutting measure that prioritizes the convenience of the rest of the business over the quality of the work being done.
In some organisations the use of meetings is so ridiculous that day two after a ceo sends an email corporate wide asking for a reduction in meetings, meetings are organised to discuss how to reduce meetings and as a result there are meetings to follow up on meetings where reducing meetings has been discussed.
Sometimes I wonder if people that cause meetings arent the people we keep reading about that have no inner voice and simply need to talk to someone, anyone, to compensate.
status meetings were called out as an engineering management antipattern 40 years ago yet they remain utterly rampant.
Yes, the tools you use will impact performance and quality of life. Invest in these. But also, getting better at video calls helps with performance and quality of life.
I have found that when we treat video calls as real time conversations, we get frustrated with latency and the lack of proper audio mixing.
However, if I and the people I video conference with obey certain protocols: 1 person speaks at a time, raise your hand to speak next, etc, many of the frustrations that cause fatigue go away.
It still isn't a replacement for the real time, able to talk over each other style that we might prefer, but at least it's productive and less of a drag.
I'll note that when we adhere to these protocols, we find not only are we less fatigued, but the quality of communication sky rockets. I think this is a result of everyone having more room to think and being forced to prepare your thoughts rather than reacting with whichever thought comes first.
Regarding the "they're just trying to get us back in the office" debate - I'm hopeful that genZ will come fully immunized against zoom fatigue and it'll be less of an issue.
i.e. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/upshot/long-covid-disabil...
We really need to stop talking about (just) remote and start talking about async.
That's the game changer: everything should be written and recorded, people should favour writing in issue threads or chats over having a meeting and keeping meetings for the essential sessions.
- Move further away from the screen
- Take breaks between calls
- Use a standing desk or a treadmill desk
- Have no-camera sessions
- Hide self-view
Sure some, like my wife, have to pay attention 100% of the time. But most of the people working with her? No way
For those of us who are on constant back-to-back video calls with a small group of people, “zoom fatigue” is a very real thing.
Or turn the camera off. I dont get why people confrence with the camera on. Its usually a distraction and is fraught with dangers.
If you're not talking your mic should be off, you camera should be too.
When companies just try to take, say, a round-robin update meeting and move it online, it’s usually a waste of time. Or a 50 minute presentation where someone’s just winging it with a PowerPoint.
I wouldn’t even bother an online course where they just setup a web camera in class and follow a lecture.
It’s like videoconferencing has gotten so cheap and easy, it allows for sloppy planning and presentation. I dropped several classes in college because the lecturer didn’t bother even learning how to present with a mic, speak clearly, etc.
Companies should just ask for quick anonymous feedback after meetings just to set up an improvement loop.
Or to spend hours in traffic forced to wait and breathe bad air.
Or to have only cafeteria food for lunch for years on end.
that is taking a toll on your health, not working from home.
Choose your doom, but choose wisely.
I choose to go to the office on most days, because I prefer that. Not everyone prefer all remote all the time, and you people need to stop that everyone else is like you.
However, a lot of us prefer remote and do great in that context and see a lot more ups than downs to working from home. That's also fine, but unlike in-office work, there's a barrage of BS studies and PHB managers and executives that are trying to pull every stunt imaginable to get people to come back to the office. Sure, there is some additional synergy (to use a corporate buzz word) that they've lost, but mainly, they want the control back that they had prior to remote where people couldn't switch jobs as easily for higher pay. They're also freaking out about the corporate real estate losses and it isn't my problem that their investment is now worthless. Claims of people not doing anything from home are kind of worthless as it's the same people in both scenarios. Those that are skating by with the minimum workload were doing the same in their cube.
> A couple of zoom calls may suck, but certainly less than commuting to have the same meeting in a stuffy room.
Maybe I read too much into the comment. Maybe it was just meant as a way of saying "I personally prefer remote work + video conferences to in-person meetings". But I feel like there's a narrative that developers actually uniformly prefer remote work, and that the comment reflected that narrative.
Your response[0] was to my comment[1]. If you meant to reply to [2], you should have clicked that reply link instead of replying to my comment. I'm not /u/7thaccount. It's an easy and common mistake most people just acknowledge and move on from.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38416060
I'd agree that there is a distribution and some do enjoy going in. I believe most like having the option where they can choose each day. I prefer fully remote, but occasionally I do wish I could go in for the day to socialize a bit more. To each their own.
Every other Friday we had a three hour long meeting with at least half a dozen people. And it was virtual too - we had to stare at a screen and aim a camera at ourselves
It's almost as if one should understand the business they're running if they want it to succeed. Perhaps they don't and nihilistically bide their time believing their feet will never have to touch the ground as long as they still have money they equally and severely misunderstand.
The study hasn’t been replicated at all, let alone in the workplace setting, or even with subjects in possession of fully developed brains.
The title might need some tweaking…
The solution (outside of just not participating) was to have a clip of Tibetan singing bowls play in the background.
Especially one sleepy co-worker's voice started sounding as if he was delivering profound truths while in the lotus position.
Isn’t the metaverse the ultimate virtual space?