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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people into remote work, meaning many in-person meetings now have to be conducted over video chat platforms like Zoom
ZM,
, Google
GOOG,
Meet and Microsoft
MSFT,
Teams.
MarketWatch has outlined some tips for getting over “Zoom fatigue,” such as positioning your camera farther away, and even turning your camera off once in a while.
A new study from the American Psychological Association gets deeper about it.
According to the study, the feeling of Zoom fatigue isn’t necessarily a symptom of the number of meetings you have or how long they last, but about the personal connection you feel with the people on the call.
“We expected that aspects of being on video would be related to fatigue, such as watching everyone’s faces closely on a screen or even watching yourself, but we didn’t find this to be true in our study. Longer meetings also didn’t impact fatigue,” Andrew Bennett, lead researcher and assistant professor at Old Dominion University, said. “However, the importance of feeling a sense of belonging or connection with the group really minimized fatigue after a videoconference.”
Authors of the study suggest scheduling time before and after meetings for “small talk” to help establish those connections with co-workers that are not as easy to make while working remotely.
Creating time for small talk before and after meetings may be difficult with large companywide videoconferences and easier with smaller team meetings, but the study says that those connections are of paramount importance for combating Zoom fatigue.
“Everyone just wants to get in and get out, log in and log off,” one participant of the study said. “There’s very little chatter before and after the meeting like there would be in real life.”
The study from the American Psychological Association releases as Zoom Video Communications launched its new $100 million venture portfolio the Zoom App Fund.
Over the past calendar year, Zoom’s stock is up 110%, Google is up 80%, and Microsoft is up 46%. The S&P 500
SPX,
index is up 46% over that same period.
