Wearied by too much screen time

Big number of meetings conducted online due to the pandemic has resulted in a malady called Zoom fatigue 

The billions of meetings conducted through the screen around the world daily has led to the emergence of a new pandemic.

It is a malady called “Zoom fatigue” and it has affected everyone from business executives to students.

Even founder and chief executive officer of Zoom Communications Eric Yuan is feeling the strain. The medium he has introduced to the world has come back to haunt him.

The Covid-19 pandemic and need for social distancing have forced people to conduct their meetings on platforms such as Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts.

The novelty for most has worn off and it has become more challenging to keep a discussion going through the screen. For most, it is mentally and physically exhausting.

The challenges are multiple. Virtual interactions can be hard on the mind. Unlike face-to-face meetings, an interjection in the middle of a conversation somehow seems more ill-mannered on Zoom.

As recent research by Sweden’s University of Gothenburg and Stanford University in the United States reveals that additional cognitive effort is necessary when interacting in a video conference.

The research shows that Zoom fatigue can be caused by what is known as “mirror anxiety”, which is triggered by viewing oneself in video conferencing and the sense of being trapped because of the need to stay within the field of vision.

Other causes including having to constantly keep people’s eyes in one’s field of vision, also known as hyper gaze and having to manage non-verbal behaviour.

Recent studies also showed women are more prone to attacks of Zoom fatigue than men. A study of 10,322 individuals showed one in seven, or 13.8%, women reported feeling “very” to “extremely” fatigued after Zoom calls, compared with one in 20, or 5.5%, men.

Women also tend to have longer meetings than men, and they take fewer breaks. They are more likely to focus on themselves when looking in the mirror, and attending a Zoom meeting is like looking in the mirror.

That also triggers a “heightened self-consciousness and awareness of one’s appearance that can lead to negative thoughts, the study showed.

Communications expert Adlene Aris said women are easily exhausted emotionally and cognitively because now that they are at home all the time, they also have to deal with household chores and monitor the children’s online classes.

Adlene, who is a lecturer at the faculty of applied communication at Multimedia University, told theSun that sufferers of Zoom fatigue can help themselves by simply adjusting their work area to increase the space between themselves and the camera.

“Companies can also do their part by limiting the use of video in subset of meetings, issue guidelines on how frequent and long meetings should be as well as have intervals between meetings,” she said.

She said users should give themselves breaks, avoid multitasking and opt out from hosting video calls and have the information relayed via email instead.

International Islamic University Malaysia assistant professor Dr Shafizan Mohamed pointed out that Zoom fatigue has also led to users becoming more irritable.

She said that since women have different ways of communicating and are generally more sociable and expressive, they are more likely to feel the effects. “Given that women are now working from home rather than the office, the added burden of being home-makers is amplified.”

Shafizan also advised sufferers to explore other forms of communication, such as phone calls. “There are other ways to interact without having the need for video calls,” she added.