How to Avoid Zoom Fatigue

Academics, executives, and mental health professionals are growing aware of something called Zoom fatigue. Zoom is a popular brand of online video chat, but the phenomena is not limited to that platform. People are reporting tiredness, worry, or burnout due to increased use of videoconferencing. This has accelerated over the past year as the pandemic keeps many of us working from home some or all of the time. Since many organizations and individuals want to continue enjoying the benefits of remote work, it’s important to figure out how to avoid Zoom fatigue.

What Causes Zoom Fatigue?

It’s difficult to know how much of Zoom fatigue we can attribute to the general stress of living through extraordinary times, and how much to the overuse of videoconferencing. If there were no pandemic, and if we were on video chat constantly for benign reasons, would it still be stressful? The psychological research suggests that to a degree, it would be.

One hypothesis is that Zoom fatigue results from the brain working harder to pick up on the other people’s meanings or intentions, as there are fewer non-verbal cues. Another likely reason is that we have a wall of eyes looking back at us, causing subconscious stress. Many of these apps make us see ourselves on screen also, which can be distracting or worse. We may experience stress due to perceived social threat as we expose our home offices to others, as this may reflect on our perceived status or professionalism.

In brief, some people are very uncomfortable with constant videoconferencing, and that’s not a safe or sustainable work environment. The good news is that there are quite a few simple, commonsense things we can do to avoid Zoom fatigue.

Long before Zoom, the tyranny of 24/7  email “CC” chains stressed out professionals working across time zones. Late night and weekend voice conference calls have been fatiguing managers at global companies for decades, blurring the lines between home and work. The truth is, excessive, unproductive, or ineffective meetings have always been a source of stress and frustration. The pandemic has accelerated our use of virtual and remote video communication without addressing basic faults of meetings in general.

It’s a classic hammer-looking-for-the-nail situation. We’re misapplying or overusing a tool that seemed very effective in its initial applications. Once we see its unintended consequences, we need to take corrective actions such as those mentioned above. However, it’s also a good opportunity to ask whether the videoconference needs to happen at all. Some leaders may be overusing video because it gives them power to summon people to hear them talk. Does this topic require a face-to-face discussion? Is a phone call just as good? Would a series of text messages or chats do this job? As the saying goes, the best way to kaizen a process is to stop doing it.

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