So we’re all whacked out by lockdown, right? Feeling the daylight get shorter and the workday gets longer?
We thought we’d ask people how the change in working patterns is affecting them, with all so much back-to-back activity on Zoom, Teams, Meet etc etc.
Here at Myna, we’re on calls and conferences all the time, so we feel the effects of Zoom Fatigue, but we do video conference stuff for a living
But we were pretty shocked to see that 45% of our respondents suffer from “Zoom Fatigue”. This comes from a survey of 1500 Americans done in late October this year
Want to know why? Keep reading after the graphic
During in-person communication, our brains use Albert Mehrabian’s 7-38-55 rule to decipher the meaning behind the information relayed. 7% verbal, 38% tone of voice and 55% body language. Video calls take away most of the body language cues, but because the person is still visible (unlike a phone call) your brain still tries to compute that non-verbal language. This means that your brain works harder, trying to achieve something that it simply can’t do. This impacts data retention and can lead to participants feeling unnecessarily tired.
While this is fine for the occasional client update, the heavy use of Zoom, Skype and other video conferencing apps throughout the period since the start of lockdown has left many homeworkers feeling drained.
It seems the 25-34 age range is the most heavily affected. In this age group, the incidence of Zoom fatigue rises to 55%, and almost 20% of those respondents reported feeling that way “all the time”
The big question is what is the mental health impact of this? We’re forcing people to be “present” during all of these meetings, and we all know that people are often trying to perform other tasks while at the same time looking alert in their meeting. You can sometimes see the change in lighting on someone’s face as they move to email or to a browser window when they are supposed to be “in the meeting”.
Lockdown is tough in any event. The shorter days already lead to a deterioration in mental health caused by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), so we already have a double whammy. Adding in another major stressor cannot be a good thing
So it’s worth looking at how you can reduce the burden on your workforce and colleagues. Obviously, you need to record your meetings and send them to Myna to let people review the meeting at their leisure and get key insights!
But why not also take a look at our “Top Ten Tips” to help run effective Zoom meetings here or watch our CTO’s quick Linkedin Video below
