11 Proven Tips & Tricks to Cope With Zoom Fatigue
Remote work culture has become the new normal and led to new complications including Zoom fatigue. Identify if you have symptoms of zoom fatigue and learn to cope with them to keep delivering outstanding performances.
The recent pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge to the world and suddenly almost every professional shifted to ‘work from home’ mode. Suddenly everyone was doing their office work requirements online, hopping on quick calls and scheduling remote meetings through Zoom and various other virtual meeting platforms. This disruption made Zoom and MS teams a household term overnight.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Zoom calls surged extraordinarily and that trend remained somewhat similar even beyond the pandemic. It went up from 10 million to 300 million calls per day as of 2022. Microsoft Teams or MS Teams, a similar platform for virtual meetings, experienced similar trends, as it reached 270 million users in 2022 from 75 million in 2020.
What is Zoom Fatigue?
Remote working reshaped the work culture of many industries and businesses realised it is here to stay. A big chunk of the workforce is still working from home and using either one or more from Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Google Meets and so on for a significant amount of time daily.
The new normal has led to the birth of a new complication: Zoom fatigue.
It happens due to the way we process information over video. During a video call, we can only pay attention by looking at the camera. We hesitate to turn to look around, fearing it may seem like we are not paying attention. After a while, this constant gaze makes us feel uncomfortable and tired.
In real life, we rarely sit or stand near a colleague and stare at their face like we need to do over Zoom calls. Even if we do, we use our peripheral vision to glance out our surroundings. But on video calls, we keep staring at a small window on our computer/mobile screens, making us hyper-aware of every expression.
And without the visual breaks to refocus our brain, we experience fatigue or Zoom Fatigue.
What are the Symptoms of Zoom Fatigue?
Some of the most common symptoms of Zoom fatigue are mentioned below.
● You feel shivers at the mention of online meetings and don't want to attend them.
● You think about online meetings and feel annoyed even when you are off work.
● You feel frustrated and angry even on petty technological or internet issues.
● You feel disoriented while attending online meetings.
● You began to feel anxious or sweaty suddenly while doing online meetings.
● You feel exhausted even after finishing online meetings.
● You experience chronic irritation or pressure on the eyes.
● You may experience migraines or headaches frequently.
If you are experiencing one or more symptoms mentioned above, then you are suffering from Zoom fatigue. Although it's popular as Zoom fatigue, it can happen due to constant use of any online/virtual meeting platform such as Google Hangouts and Meet, Skype, Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans, Slack, FaceTime, and so on.