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Zoom Fatigue Solutions

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Move. Look up. Focus. Acknowledge Effort. Vary Medium.

Research on videoconference is rolling in from academics now that a year has passed since it became our primary means of communicating. While we’ve all learned the skills needed to do Zoom right, we now need to learn how to keep it from making us crazy. The latest research out of Stanford and San Francisco State University clearly shows that the fatigue we are feeling is real, with distinct causes, but also that there are ways to mitigate the problem. To tell just how much we are affected, we can take the ZEF Scale survey and contribute to Stanford’s research efforts.

Why the Fatigue?

Based on the current research, the reasons we are feeling this Zoom fatigue – which is not specific to Zoom itself but to any videoconference platform – are both physical and psychological. Physically, we are not moving our bodies and our eyes as we typically do when we are meeting in person or talking on the phone. Psychologically, we are dealing with watching ourselves in action and with having to process nonverbal communication that is more difficult to catch and interpret.

When we don’t move our bodies, we fall into sitting-and-watching-mode where we become conditioned not to act and we have reduced subjective energy. When our eyes are fixed on one thing (the screen) for a long time, certain eye muscles stay in a tight position. This is in contrast to when we look at different things, as we do when meeting in person, and different muscles in the eyes contract and then relax.

Psychologically, when we look at ourselves, we tend to be critical and that puts us into negative emotional states. There has never been a historical time when humans watch themselves while communicating the way we tend to do on videoconference right now. Another historical change is interpreting nonverbal communication when it is mediated through videoconference. In person, we are constantly picking up cues subconsciously decoding messages and making meaning from them. Not only is it harder to give and receiving nonverbal cues, but we are getting false cues that we need to interpret. This places a higher cognitive load on us. So, while we sit still, look in one place, see ourselves constantly, and work to send and interpret nonverbal cues, we are getting exhausted!

That is the bad news. The good news is that the research also gives us relatively easy fixes to these problems. We can move our bodies and our eyes, stop looking at ourselves, focus our attention, increase nonverbal cues given and interpreted, and utilize multiple communication media.   

Move

Move it or lose it. Sitting all day is bad for us physically and psychologically, so we just need to move our bodies more. We can shift positions from a chair to a stool to standing for different videoconferences throughout the day. We can take short breaks by scheduling the start of meetings at five minutes past the hour; do burpees or dance to energetic music for three minutes in between meetings. 

Look up

Avoid staring at one spot of the screen for a long period of time to eliminate eye fatigue. First take the opportunity to shift from looking at the speaker to the presentation materials, which are ideally on a separate monitor. We can position our computers in front of a window and look up right over the edge of camera to something far in the distance outside the window and then back again to move our eyes without appearing to be distracted. We can avoid watching ourselves and triggering negative emotional states by checking our frame when we start and then turning off our self-view.

Focus

To avoid the drop in energy from falling into sitting and watching mode, stay with the flow of the meeting and avoid attempting to multitask (which is usually just task switching). Taking notes on paper (or even doodling) and responding in chat or with emoji reactions helps sustain on-topic attention. Setting the corporate culture to eliminate unnecessary meetings and making sure only those essential to the purpose attend helps to avoid people sitting on videoconference while doing other work.

Acknowledge Effort

Nonverbal communication mediated through videoconference simply takes more energy. We need to exaggerate our facial expressions and nod more in order for others to be able to read our nonverbal cues. We also carry a heavier cognitive load to interpret others’ cues. Did they glance to the side because they don’t understand or don’t believe us? Or did someone just enter the room on that side? We can ask more questions and engage people through chat, turn taking, and requests for reactions so that we are getting more feedback – but all that takes effort too.  Acknowledging that effort helps us plan our workload more effectively. We can also specify when video is needed for a meeting, or at what points during a meeting, and when it is not. This works well for my students when online learning; we are on video when interacting and then off video when I present material and ask for written responses.

Vary Medium

All Zoom all the time just doesn’t work. It is like sitting in the conference room all day in meetings and never going back to your desk to get work done. Before the pandemic videoconference craze, we were more varied in communication mediums.  As we come out of the pandemic, we will make choices about how we communicate from a wider variety of options. The best time to use videoconference will be when we cannot be physically in one place, but definitely need to see others. 

With many of us still working from home, and with conversations starting about what post-pandemic office life will look like, it is helpful to have new research to guide us in using videoconference as an integral part of our daily work life.  With making a few adjustments, we can keep being effective collaborators and communicators without exhausting ourselves.

Where to Look and Other Video Conference Tips

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Bringing forth our best communication skills on a video conference makes interactions much more engaging.  It is not quite in-person, but video is a much richer interaction than over the phone.  What do we need to keep in mind on video?  The question I get most often is,  ‘where do I look on the screen?’  If we look at the people or content it can seem to others like we are looking in our laps. Not good. The short answer to that common question is move your eyes around, just like you would in person.  The long answer is part of my  four tips for better video conference communication: 

  1. pretend you are in person
  2. use both verbal and nonverbal communication
  3. avoid distractions
  4. stay audience aware

1) Pretend You Are In Person

It is easy to feel more casual when interacting over video, but it is better to treat the situation as if we are in person.  We can ask ourselves, ‘would I be dressed this way and doing what I am doing if that person was here with me?’  That typically means that we are dressed professionally (at least on the top half). It also means we are sitting in a chair at a table or desk.  Importantly we are notmultitasking getting some other project done or checking email while engaging with someone. 

2) Use Skillful Verbal & Nonverbal Communication

Our voice can be interesting if we vary our pitch, volume, and speed of speaking.  Our voice can put others to sleep if we keep the same tone, volume, and pace the whole time.  It helps to remember we are speaking with someone, not to someone.  We can speak faster to show excitement and slow down when a point is super important.  It also helps to call in on a phone instead of using computer audio because the sound of our voice is clearer and there is less environmental noise.

Effective nonverbal communication shifts a bit from in person to on video.  On video only our upper torso is visible and therefore body language expression needs to occur in that area.  Our facial expressions need to animate more, and we can use head tilts and nods to show we are listening.  Now to the details on where to look, the most common question.  Going back to the first tip – pretend you are in person – we look many different places when we are in person, so we should do the same on video.  What is different is the many different places are spatially limited to the screen. I recommend looking directly in the camera because then it appears we are making eye contact.  But don’t looks just there because then it is like a broadcast reporter staring into the camera.  Move from the camera to the other people on video, to the content displayed on the screen and then back to the camera.  This way it will appear more natural, much like it would in person. It helps to drag the box with the video of other participants to the top of your screen so when we look at them, our eyes are just adjusting slightly, and our heads don’t need to move down to see them.

The last element of nonverbal communication on video is hand motions.  If we use hand motions where people can’t see them, they may wonder what exactly we are doing with our hands.  Better to move our hand motions up to the level of our chest and shoulders.  It might feel a bit odd at first, but when we watch ourselves on video it looks natural.  We also need to move our hands more slowly to avoid blurring in the video. Keeping our voice, face, eyes, and upper body animated on video conference shows we are engaged and helps keep others interested.

3) Avoid Distractions

We are curious beings and if there is something visually interesting going on in video behind the speaker or listener, we can easily get distracted.  Before getting on a video conference, test the system and look at all that is in the view window.  Do we want people looking at that picture of us in our bathing suit or dancing on a rooftop? Is our to-do list on the whiteboard?  Is there an unmade bed or unfolded laundry visible in a home office? Clean up the view window to reduce the distractions.  We can also give officemates or roommates heads up that we are jumping on video, so they don’t inadvertently come into view.  Turning off alerts or going into Do Not Disturb mode on our devices eliminates another form of distraction.  Not touching our hair, face, or clothing is another way to avoid distraction.  It helps to remember we are being watched and to look at ourselves as well as the other participants as we are moving our eyes intentionally around the screen. 

4) Stay Audience Aware

On video we only get a little square headshot of our audience to receive nonverbal listener feedback.  That means we need to be acutely aware of the nonverbal signals given and we need to seek more verbal feedback.  Take turns looking at every person who is in the meeting.  This is more easily done if we use the gallery or multi-person video option.  Still remember to look at the camera in between looking at people.  If we see someone distracted – either looking down or up or (worse case) leaving the video screen – we can stop talking and ask questions. Overall it is just a good idea on video to pause more often and ask more questions.

Video conference is a great way to have more of a human connection when you cannot meet in person. Being intentional about how we communicate through this method improves our interactions.  When we pretend we are in person, skillfully use verbal and nonverbal communication, avoid distractions, and stay audience aware, then the people on the other end of this technology will be much more interested and engaged.