[Link] A Theoretical Argument for the Causes of Zoom Fatigue

Why do we feel exhausted after hours /days / months now of videoconferencing?  What is Zoom (or Teams) fatigue really?

Stanford University’s Jeremy Bailenson has some ideas worth considering. Some – not all – of the solutions to this problem are trivial design implementations that the big tech companies haven’t yet gotten around to.

Anyone who speaks for a living understands the intensity of being stared at for hours at a time. Even when speakers see virtual faces instead of real ones, research has shown that being stared at while speaking causes physiological arousal (Takac et al., 2019). But Zoom’s interface design constantly beams faces to everyone, regardless of who is speaking. From a perceptual standpoint, Zoom effectively transforms listeners into speakers and smothers everyone with eye gaze.

 

[Link] New Year, Same Boat

It’s natural to hope that things are going to be immediately better as the calendar turns from one year to the next but, of course, the trends that were already in play didn’t magically evaporate at midnight, December 31.  We’re all still dealing with what we were dealing with last year and will be for some undetermined amount of time going forward. – Scott Eblin

in a blog post titled “New Year, Same Boat