Video call meetings tire us more (for these 4 reasons)

One of the most typical consequences of smart working is that of being crushed by an endless series of virtual meetings and calls. And perhaps this is the crux of the problem: we tend to abuse it. An overload that brings with it some critical issues. On the one hand, it takes away our useful time, and secondly, it systematically lowers energy and concentration. A shared feeling that became certain after the scientific confirmation of the study signed by the researchers of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL) who also identified a real malaise: the “fatigue from ZoomOr fatigue from video calls.

The researchers, led by Jeremy Bailenson, director and founder of VHIL, examined the psychological consequences of spending hours a day on these platforms. The research focused on a real deconstruction of the online experience, analyzing every single movement or action that the meetings involve. Factors such as the excess of glances to which we expose ourselves and which we in turn must keep under control, the cognitive effort, the increase in attention to one’s personal appearance in front of a camera and the restrictions on physical mobility required by the use of the platform. Four consequences of video chat have been identified that contribute to the feeling of Zoom fatigue.

1. TOO MANY LOOKS WEAR

In a normal meeting, people look at the speaker, take notes, or look elsewhere. But during Zoom calls, everyone is watching everyone, all the time. Eye contact is significantly increased, always feeling observed. This inevitably creates more performance anxieties. In a meeting on Zoom we tend to keep part of the concentration reserved for self-control, in the awareness of being seen by each of the participants in the video call. The solution suggested by the researchers is to remove Zoom from the full screen option and reduce the size of the Zoom window to minimize the size of the faces and to use an external keyboard to allow more space between yourself and the grid.

2. LOOKING FOR YOURSELF TOO MUCH TIME IS NOT GOOD

During chats, you spend a lot of time looking at yourself. And it is bad, because we tend to be hypercritical and this leads to a high rate of stress and continuous shifting of the gaze from the face of others to your own. a substantially unnatural thing. “If someone was constantly following you with a mirror – so that while you talk to people, make decisions, give feedback, get feedback – they can see you, that would be just crazy. Nobody would ever consider it. There is a lot of research showing that there are negative emotional consequences of seeing yourself in the mirror, ”added Bailenson. The solution would be to not show your webcam video, using the «Hide auto-view» button, an option that should be considered by the developers of all video chat programs.

3. REDUCTION OF MOBILITY

Normal conversations allow humans to walk and move. But with videoconferencing, the field of view is limited by the field of the frame, which means that a person generally has to stay in the same spot, limiting the range of motion in ways that aren’t natural. “When people move, they have better cognitive performance,” Bailenson said. The solution would be to think of increasing the distance. For example, an external camera further away from the screen will allow you to walk and doodle in virtual meetings just like we do in real ones. And then periodically turning off your video during meetings is a good rule of thumb to allow yourself a short non-verbal rest.

4. OVERLOAD (COGNITIVE LOAD)

In regular face-to-face interaction, visual communication is loaded with non-verbal communications made up of looks, posture, hints and expressions. Each of us interprets these signals unconsciously. “It happens that in video chats, we have to work harder to send and receive signals. To this is added what is the interaction with the instrument, the attention to the framing, the ambient brightness, the background used. This information overload clearly makes an interaction more strenuous than it should be entirely natural, ”said Bailenson. The solution it could be that, during very long meetings, to allow oneself an “audio only” break also to move the body away from the screen, so that for a few minutes the user is not suffocated by gestures that are socially meaningless “.