8 ms·

'Zoom fatigue' may take toll on the brain and the heart

21 points by foundart 3y ago

OfficeChad 3y ago
End remote, return to office and teams!
basisword 3y ago
Can't read it as it's behind a paywall, but unless this is compared against the toll that commuting/working in an uncomfortable environment/extra expenditure/worse diet it's not very helpful. On top of that video conferencing is highly dependent on roll. There's a few people in meetings all day, every day, some on a few meetings a day, and other on a few a week.
- a_wild_dandan 3y ago
  My Firefox reader mode busted through the popup. It’s about college kids being “notably” increasingly fatigued while watching an hour lecture. The study hasn’t been replicated at all, let alone in the workplace setting, or even with subjects in possession of fully developed brains. The title might need some tweaking…
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Tade0 3y ago
  I used to have 2h, 15-person meetings which, naturally, achieved little. The solution (outside of just not participating) was to have a clip of Tibetan singing bowls play in the background. Especially one sleepy co-worker's voice started sounding as if he was delivering profound truths while in the lotus position.
notadoc 3y ago
What makes Zoom unique or different from simply using a computer doing other work for an equivalent amount of time? Or from being in meetings for an equivalent amount of time? Here's the actual study cited, minus the "news" regurgitation, suggestive language, and interpretation: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45374-y https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45374-y
- rightbyte 3y ago
  A bad headset will give a headache due to pressure after some time. Easely solved by using speakers. Any drawback is offset by being able to zone out during boring meetings. By a long shot, I feel.
pvg 3y ago
Discussed at length the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38386646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38386646
gumballindie 3y ago
The solution is simple enough that even the people researching such topics should understand - let people focus on getting things done instead of holding them in meetings all.day.long.
- nine_zeros 3y ago
  BUT THEN WHAT WILL MANAGERS DO?
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    Apparently they will prompt ais or something.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    What good managers do is bother to actually read the group chats and give a fuck about the details. Re-read what they don't understand until they do and only then reach out with a short and scheduled meeting and maybe just a few DMs. Then they get to work coordinating the effort for the next sprint and make sure everyone is on schedule. Far too many managers these days are just kicking back and checking boxes or dictating absurdly oversimplified plans from afar. A good manager becomes a student and servant of their own team. Anyone who doesn't want to do this needs to find another place to work. Just because we work from home doesn't mean we don't work.
    - aantix 3y ago
      Do you feel this is something that could be automated with a good AI scheduling agent? GPT seems to have a good sense when something is ambiguous. I bet it could also be made to make future projections mapped to dates. Feels like this may be an AI agent in the near future.. P.S. Startup idea?
      - sublinear 3y ago
        You're probably not wrong, but a 99% sensible plan can still be catastrophically bad. The complex knot of decisions to be made in the 1% may completely invalidate whatever the AI already told the higher-ups. This happens even now when humans painstakingly plan something out (usually because someone is abusing their "soft skills" to buy time or keep others from worrying). I think humans are still miles ahead in being able to spot a lie that will derail a project. If you force people to work under an equally incompetent AI middle manager, prepare to see them quit in a mass exodus for somewhere that doesn't. Nobody (except naive college grads) is going to risk getting fired or having their career ruined by an over-glorified cost-cutting measure that prioritizes the convenience of the rest of the business over the quality of the work being done.
Podgajski 3y ago
Cmon yall, they are trying to nudge you back to the office. Get it?
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  Lol it's honestly laughable at this point. A couple of zoom calls may suck, but certainly less than commuting to have the same meeting in a stuffy room.
  - mort96 3y ago
    You just ... say that as if it's universally true for everyone? I would hate it if I had to have all my meetings as video calls.
    - thsksbd 3y ago
      Before COVID most of my meetings were video confrence. The difference being that I had to be in a stuffy room with a half dozen other people adding their own particular je ne sais quois to the smell.
    - Kye 3y ago
      The problem seems to be the endless meetings, not work from home.
      - mort96 3y ago
        I'm not in endless meetings, I'm in a reasonable amount of to-the-point meetings. I hated when all of them were all video calls during the various lockdowns. I choose to go to the office on most days, because I prefer that. Not everyone prefer all remote all the time, and you people need to stop that everyone else is like you.
        7thaccount 3y ago
        Nobody cares if you like to go in to the office and isn't trying to convince you otherwise that everything should be remote. More power to you. My wife prefers a fairly crappy commute as she can't focus at home. That's fine. However, a lot of us prefer remote and do great in that context and see a lot more ups than downs to working from home. That's also fine, but unlike in-office work, there's a barrage of BS studies and PHB managers and executives that are trying to pull every stunt imaginable to get people to come back to the office. Sure, there is some additional synergy (to use a corporate buzz word) that they've lost, but mainly, they want the control back that they had prior to remote where people couldn't switch jobs as easily for higher pay. They're also freaking out about the corporate real estate losses and it isn't my problem that their investment is now worthless. Claims of people not doing anything from home are kind of worthless as it's the same people in both scenarios. Those that are skating by with the minimum workload were doing the same in their cube.
asylteltine 3y ago
Ever since the pandemic I noticed a change in how people communicate online socially. No one wants to text FaceTime or whatever. People are sick of virtual spaces. I think metaverse style solutions truly is the future. Look at lex Friedman podcast with mark the stuff meta is working on is AMAZING too bad it’s being done by meta… hard to trust their products.
- Tagbert 3y ago
  People are sick of virtual spaces but metaverse is the future? Isn’t the metaverse the ultimate virtual space?
  - asylteltine 3y ago
    I should clarify I mean shitty virtual spaces like zoom. It’s terrible. Being able to perceive someone in 3d is a totally different experience
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I can’t really deal with long Zoom meetings. I know a couple of WFH folks that are on it almost all day. I get exhausted. Partly, it’s because I have a standing desk. I work at it all day, but I’m constantly moving around, like leaning on the desk, walking away for a minute, etc. In a Zoom meeting, I need to be a “talking head.” Very little movement.
- mosquitobiten 3y ago
  There are a few webcams with integrated head tracking, insta360 has one that is pretty crazy how fast it is.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Some Apple devices (iPads and Studio Display, IIRC) do this as well.
- saturn_vk 3y ago
  Why do you feel you have to be immobile during meetings. I pace all the time, regardless if someone's watching through my webcam or not
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    Because of the video optimization. You can see it in action, on others' images. Much better, these days. I probably don't really need to do it, anymore, but it's habit. It rewards staying still. I got used to that, back in the 1990s, when we would ISDN to Japan. I've literally, been videoconferencing, longer than some folks around here, have been alive.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    If it's a cameras-off day, I'm often on my yoga mat stretching or working with a foam roller, or working with my hangboard. If it's cameras-on I don't want to distract anybody with my antics.
cloudking 3y ago
Speaking of Zoom. Are there any mics or webcam/mic combos that have really good directional noise cancellation to only pick up sound from the person in front of them? I'd like to stop using Bluetooth earbuds (best solution I've found), but need only my voice to be picked up.
- collin128 3y ago
  I use a Rode Videomic NTG and it does a pretty good job. It still picks up a little bit of the room echo but I've noticed that zoom does a better job of noise canceling when I use this mic compared to others.
  - cloudking 3y ago
    Nice, thanks for the suggestion!
imchillyb 3y ago
Zoom fatigue is not as harmful or long lasting as commute fatigue. Choose your doom, but choose wisely.
- recursive 3y ago
  You are allowed to choose neither. My commute is a 15-minute bike ride.
  - jokethrowaway 3y ago
    You're allowed to choose neither. We work async and minimise meetings.
foundart 3y ago
I posted with the 'read for free' link, but HN seems to have gone through the redirect to the underlying URL. Here's the free link: https://wapo.st/3QTGLHS https://wapo.st/3QTGLHS
fnordpiglet 3y ago
I would have hated attending lectures at school on zoom. My focus isn’t great on video content. However work is a completely different context. First, the ability to meet quickly and resolve issues synchronously is generally better on zoom than trying to get everyone into a room, especially in any modern company with more than one location. Everyone being on zoom rather than a floating head on the screen watching the back of everyone’s head is vastly worse than everyone on zoom. Second, the meetings don’t degenerate into social hour but typically stay on point. Third, I can look things up and read materials as the meeting goes without sitting staring at my computer or phone during a meeting that’s degenerating into a social hour. Zoom fatigue as it’s called it probably nothing more than trying to retain dry content with distractions - definitely in front of the computer there’s a lot of stuff to distract from the talking head and the talking head isn’t that compelling. In person they dominate your mental and social world by construction. But in meetings that’s not necessary not necessarily optimal for best decision making. And if you don’t need to be there and the content is boring and pointless you can zone out.
thsksbd 3y ago
Zoom fatigue is not a real thing. At least not for most people enduring normal, useless calls. For us, the zoom calls means that we do productive work while keeping an ear out for topics where we are needed. Sure some, like my wife, have to pay attention 100% of the time. But most of the people working with her? No way
- alberth 3y ago
  How many times per day are you on video calls (camera on) with < 6 people? For those of us who are on constant back-to-back video calls with a small group of people, “zoom fatigue” is a very real thing.
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    The group is small enough, ie intimate, to not do zoom. Just bring it up. Or turn the camera off. I dont get why people confrence with the camera on. Its usually a distraction and is fraught with dangers. If you're not talking your mic should be off, you camera should be too.
collin128 3y ago
We're fully remote and I was feeling worn out from zoom calls about a year ago. I found that turning off "self-view" was a really nice change.
ryanmcgarvey 3y ago
In my experience, working from home is similar to many of the other skills we hone in our careers. Yes, the tools you use will impact performance and quality of life. Invest in these. But also, getting better at video calls helps with performance and quality of life. I have found that when we treat video calls as real time conversations, we get frustrated with latency and the lack of proper audio mixing. However, if I and the people I video conference with obey certain protocols: 1 person speaks at a time, raise your hand to speak next, etc, many of the frustrations that cause fatigue go away. It still isn't a replacement for the real time, able to talk over each other style that we might prefer, but at least it's productive and less of a drag. I'll note that when we adhere to these protocols, we find not only are we less fatigued, but the quality of communication sky rockets. I think this is a result of everyone having more room to think and being forced to prepare your thoughts rather than reacting with whichever thought comes first. Regarding the "they're just trying to get us back in the office" debate - I'm hopeful that genZ will come fully immunized against zoom fatigue and it'll be less of an issue.
- chrisweekly 3y ago
  Also -- HIDE THE VIEW OF YOUR OWN FACE! This is a significant factor in "zoom fatigue" experienced by many. Looking at yourself in the mirror during high-stakes professional interactions is a footgun.
mr_tristan 3y ago
I’ve noticed that video chats are great when they complement detailed asynchronous communication, e.g., RFC-style doc or a produced video. The best video conference work meetings tend to be: read a doc for 10 mins and then everyone launches into a Q&A. Discussions are usually vastly better; questions are detailed and focused, more people engage, etc. When companies just try to take, say, a round-robin update meeting and move it online, it’s usually a waste of time. Or a 50 minute presentation where someone’s just winging it with a PowerPoint. I wouldn’t even bother an online course where they just setup a web camera in class and follow a lecture. It’s like videoconferencing has gotten so cheap and easy, it allows for sloppy planning and presentation. I dropped several classes in college because the lecturer didn’t bother even learning how to present with a mic, speak clearly, etc. Companies should just ask for quick anonymous feedback after meetings just to set up an improvement loop.
28304283409234 3y ago
So how about phone calls? Are phone calls bad too?
thefz 3y ago
I wish there was a study on being in a noisy environment for years. In hwich you can't control the lighting or the ergonomy of every peripheral you have. A study on a person's stress levels after being forced to concentrate in a large 11-person room in which everyone is on the phone, all the time. Or to spend hours in traffic forced to wait and breathe bad air. Or to have only cafeteria food for lunch for years on end. that is taking a toll on your health, not working from home.
thenerdhead 3y ago
I find it pretty interesting that many of these studies happened in 2021-2022, which is after everyone has been infected with covid at least once. Then to not put any correlation to biological cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, or other challenges given most people still work remotely. i.e. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/upshot/long-covid-disability.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/upshot/long-covid-disabil... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715665/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715665/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8798975/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8798975/
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
The number one differentiator for me is whether we are forced to use cameras or not. I never turn one on unless specifically asked. And even then, I tend to turn it off anyway after some time of possible. If it's turned off, then I don't have to put with this crap that most people do, that is meetings for the sake of meetings. On the other hand, the actual meetings where we meet with one or two colleagues and we work on blockers etc. are extremely useful, engaging, and instead of fatigue I feel satisfaction. (Maybe because instead of my face, I show my screen).
ochronus 3y ago
Here are a couple of tips on how to mitigate zoom fatigue: https://leadership.garden/zoom-fatigue/ https://leadership.garden/zoom-fatigue/ - Move further away from the screen - Take breaks between calls - Use a standing desk or a treadmill desk - Have no-camera sessions - Hide self-view
jokethrowaway 3y ago
True but I hate real life meetings too. We really need to stop talking about (just) remote and start talking about async. That's the game changer: everything should be written and recorded, people should favour writing in issue threads or chats over having a meeting and keeping meetings for the essential sessions.

21 points by foundart 3y ago

End remote, return to office and teams!

Can't read it as it's behind a paywall, but unless this is compared against the toll that commuting/working in an uncomfortable environment/extra expenditure/worse diet it's not very helpful. On top of that video conferencing is highly dependent on roll. There's a few people in meetings all day, every day, some on a few meetings a day, and other on a few a week.

a_wild_dandan 3y ago
My Firefox reader mode busted through the popup. It’s about college kids being “notably” increasingly fatigued while watching an hour lecture. The study hasn’t been replicated at all, let alone in the workplace setting, or even with subjects in possession of fully developed brains. The title might need some tweaking…
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Tade0 3y ago
I used to have 2h, 15-person meetings which, naturally, achieved little. The solution (outside of just not participating) was to have a clip of Tibetan singing bowls play in the background. Especially one sleepy co-worker's voice started sounding as if he was delivering profound truths while in the lotus position.

notadoc 3y ago

What makes Zoom unique or different from simply using a computer doing other work for an equivalent amount of time? Or from being in meetings for an equivalent amount of time? Here's the actual study cited, minus the "news" regurgitation, suggestive language, and interpretation: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45374-y https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-45374-y

rightbyte 3y ago
A bad headset will give a headache due to pressure after some time. Easely solved by using speakers. Any drawback is offset by being able to zone out during boring meetings. By a long shot, I feel.

pvg 3y ago

Discussed at length the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38386646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38386646

gumballindie 3y ago

The solution is simple enough that even the people researching such topics should understand - let people focus on getting things done instead of holding them in meetings all.day.long.

nine_zeros 3y ago
BUT THEN WHAT WILL MANAGERS DO?
- gumballindie 3y ago
  Apparently they will prompt ais or something.
- sublinear 3y ago
  What good managers do is bother to actually read the group chats and give a fuck about the details. Re-read what they don't understand until they do and only then reach out with a short and scheduled meeting and maybe just a few DMs. Then they get to work coordinating the effort for the next sprint and make sure everyone is on schedule. Far too many managers these days are just kicking back and checking boxes or dictating absurdly oversimplified plans from afar. A good manager becomes a student and servant of their own team. Anyone who doesn't want to do this needs to find another place to work. Just because we work from home doesn't mean we don't work.
  - aantix 3y ago
    Do you feel this is something that could be automated with a good AI scheduling agent? GPT seems to have a good sense when something is ambiguous. I bet it could also be made to make future projections mapped to dates. Feels like this may be an AI agent in the near future.. P.S. Startup idea?
    - sublinear 3y ago
      You're probably not wrong, but a 99% sensible plan can still be catastrophically bad. The complex knot of decisions to be made in the 1% may completely invalidate whatever the AI already told the higher-ups. This happens even now when humans painstakingly plan something out (usually because someone is abusing their "soft skills" to buy time or keep others from worrying). I think humans are still miles ahead in being able to spot a lie that will derail a project. If you force people to work under an equally incompetent AI middle manager, prepare to see them quit in a mass exodus for somewhere that doesn't. Nobody (except naive college grads) is going to risk getting fired or having their career ruined by an over-glorified cost-cutting measure that prioritizes the convenience of the rest of the business over the quality of the work being done.

Podgajski 3y ago

Cmon yall, they are trying to nudge you back to the office. Get it?

7thaccount 3y ago
Lol it's honestly laughable at this point. A couple of zoom calls may suck, but certainly less than commuting to have the same meeting in a stuffy room.
- mort96 3y ago
  You just ... say that as if it's universally true for everyone? I would hate it if I had to have all my meetings as video calls.
  - thsksbd 3y ago
    Before COVID most of my meetings were video confrence. The difference being that I had to be in a stuffy room with a half dozen other people adding their own particular je ne sais quois to the smell.
  - Kye 3y ago
    The problem seems to be the endless meetings, not work from home.
    - mort96 3y ago
      I'm not in endless meetings, I'm in a reasonable amount of to-the-point meetings. I hated when all of them were all video calls during the various lockdowns. I choose to go to the office on most days, because I prefer that. Not everyone prefer all remote all the time, and you people need to stop that everyone else is like you.
      - 7thaccount 3y ago
        Nobody cares if you like to go in to the office and isn't trying to convince you otherwise that everything should be remote. More power to you. My wife prefers a fairly crappy commute as she can't focus at home. That's fine. However, a lot of us prefer remote and do great in that context and see a lot more ups than downs to working from home. That's also fine, but unlike in-office work, there's a barrage of BS studies and PHB managers and executives that are trying to pull every stunt imaginable to get people to come back to the office. Sure, there is some additional synergy (to use a corporate buzz word) that they've lost, but mainly, they want the control back that they had prior to remote where people couldn't switch jobs as easily for higher pay. They're also freaking out about the corporate real estate losses and it isn't my problem that their investment is now worthless. Claims of people not doing anything from home are kind of worthless as it's the same people in both scenarios. Those that are skating by with the minimum workload were doing the same in their cube.

asylteltine 3y ago

Ever since the pandemic I noticed a change in how people communicate online socially. No one wants to text FaceTime or whatever. People are sick of virtual spaces. I think metaverse style solutions truly is the future. Look at lex Friedman podcast with mark the stuff meta is working on is AMAZING too bad it’s being done by meta… hard to trust their products.

Tagbert 3y ago
People are sick of virtual spaces but metaverse is the future? Isn’t the metaverse the ultimate virtual space?
- asylteltine 3y ago
  I should clarify I mean shitty virtual spaces like zoom. It’s terrible. Being able to perceive someone in 3d is a totally different experience

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I can’t really deal with long Zoom meetings. I know a couple of WFH folks that are on it almost all day. I get exhausted. Partly, it’s because I have a standing desk. I work at it all day, but I’m constantly moving around, like leaning on the desk, walking away for a minute, etc. In a Zoom meeting, I need to be a “talking head.” Very little movement.

mosquitobiten 3y ago
There are a few webcams with integrated head tracking, insta360 has one that is pretty crazy how fast it is.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Some Apple devices (iPads and Studio Display, IIRC) do this as well.
saturn_vk 3y ago
Why do you feel you have to be immobile during meetings. I pace all the time, regardless if someone's watching through my webcam or not
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  Because of the video optimization. You can see it in action, on others' images. Much better, these days. I probably don't really need to do it, anymore, but it's habit. It rewards staying still. I got used to that, back in the 1990s, when we would ISDN to Japan. I've literally, been videoconferencing, longer than some folks around here, have been alive.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  If it's a cameras-off day, I'm often on my yoga mat stretching or working with a foam roller, or working with my hangboard. If it's cameras-on I don't want to distract anybody with my antics.

cloudking 3y ago

Speaking of Zoom. Are there any mics or webcam/mic combos that have really good directional noise cancellation to only pick up sound from the person in front of them? I'd like to stop using Bluetooth earbuds (best solution I've found), but need only my voice to be picked up.

collin128 3y ago
I use a Rode Videomic NTG and it does a pretty good job. It still picks up a little bit of the room echo but I've noticed that zoom does a better job of noise canceling when I use this mic compared to others.
- cloudking 3y ago
  Nice, thanks for the suggestion!

imchillyb 3y ago

Zoom fatigue is not as harmful or long lasting as commute fatigue. Choose your doom, but choose wisely.

recursive 3y ago
You are allowed to choose neither. My commute is a 15-minute bike ride.
- jokethrowaway 3y ago
  You're allowed to choose neither. We work async and minimise meetings.

foundart 3y ago

I posted with the 'read for free' link, but HN seems to have gone through the redirect to the underlying URL. Here's the free link: https://wapo.st/3QTGLHS https://wapo.st/3QTGLHS

fnordpiglet 3y ago

I would have hated attending lectures at school on zoom. My focus isn’t great on video content. However work is a completely different context. First, the ability to meet quickly and resolve issues synchronously is generally better on zoom than trying to get everyone into a room, especially in any modern company with more than one location. Everyone being on zoom rather than a floating head on the screen watching the back of everyone’s head is vastly worse than everyone on zoom. Second, the meetings don’t degenerate into social hour but typically stay on point. Third, I can look things up and read materials as the meeting goes without sitting staring at my computer or phone during a meeting that’s degenerating into a social hour. Zoom fatigue as it’s called it probably nothing more than trying to retain dry content with distractions - definitely in front of the computer there’s a lot of stuff to distract from the talking head and the talking head isn’t that compelling. In person they dominate your mental and social world by construction. But in meetings that’s not necessary not necessarily optimal for best decision making. And if you don’t need to be there and the content is boring and pointless you can zone out.

thsksbd 3y ago

Zoom fatigue is not a real thing. At least not for most people enduring normal, useless calls. For us, the zoom calls means that we do productive work while keeping an ear out for topics where we are needed. Sure some, like my wife, have to pay attention 100% of the time. But most of the people working with her? No way

alberth 3y ago
How many times per day are you on video calls (camera on) with < 6 people? For those of us who are on constant back-to-back video calls with a small group of people, “zoom fatigue” is a very real thing.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  The group is small enough, ie intimate, to not do zoom. Just bring it up. Or turn the camera off. I dont get why people confrence with the camera on. Its usually a distraction and is fraught with dangers. If you're not talking your mic should be off, you camera should be too.

collin128 3y ago

We're fully remote and I was feeling worn out from zoom calls about a year ago. I found that turning off "self-view" was a really nice change.

ryanmcgarvey 3y ago

In my experience, working from home is similar to many of the other skills we hone in our careers. Yes, the tools you use will impact performance and quality of life. Invest in these. But also, getting better at video calls helps with performance and quality of life. I have found that when we treat video calls as real time conversations, we get frustrated with latency and the lack of proper audio mixing. However, if I and the people I video conference with obey certain protocols: 1 person speaks at a time, raise your hand to speak next, etc, many of the frustrations that cause fatigue go away. It still isn't a replacement for the real time, able to talk over each other style that we might prefer, but at least it's productive and less of a drag. I'll note that when we adhere to these protocols, we find not only are we less fatigued, but the quality of communication sky rockets. I think this is a result of everyone having more room to think and being forced to prepare your thoughts rather than reacting with whichever thought comes first. Regarding the "they're just trying to get us back in the office" debate - I'm hopeful that genZ will come fully immunized against zoom fatigue and it'll be less of an issue.

chrisweekly 3y ago
Also -- HIDE THE VIEW OF YOUR OWN FACE! This is a significant factor in "zoom fatigue" experienced by many. Looking at yourself in the mirror during high-stakes professional interactions is a footgun.

mr_tristan 3y ago

I’ve noticed that video chats are great when they complement detailed asynchronous communication, e.g., RFC-style doc or a produced video. The best video conference work meetings tend to be: read a doc for 10 mins and then everyone launches into a Q&A. Discussions are usually vastly better; questions are detailed and focused, more people engage, etc. When companies just try to take, say, a round-robin update meeting and move it online, it’s usually a waste of time. Or a 50 minute presentation where someone’s just winging it with a PowerPoint. I wouldn’t even bother an online course where they just setup a web camera in class and follow a lecture. It’s like videoconferencing has gotten so cheap and easy, it allows for sloppy planning and presentation. I dropped several classes in college because the lecturer didn’t bother even learning how to present with a mic, speak clearly, etc. Companies should just ask for quick anonymous feedback after meetings just to set up an improvement loop.

28304283409234 3y ago

So how about phone calls? Are phone calls bad too?

thefz 3y ago

I wish there was a study on being in a noisy environment for years. In hwich you can't control the lighting or the ergonomy of every peripheral you have. A study on a person's stress levels after being forced to concentrate in a large 11-person room in which everyone is on the phone, all the time. Or to spend hours in traffic forced to wait and breathe bad air. Or to have only cafeteria food for lunch for years on end. that is taking a toll on your health, not working from home.

thenerdhead 3y ago

I find it pretty interesting that many of these studies happened in 2021-2022, which is after everyone has been infected with covid at least once. Then to not put any correlation to biological cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, or other challenges given most people still work remotely. i.e. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/upshot/long-covid-disability.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/13/upshot/long-covid-disabil... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715665/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8715665/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8798975/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8798975/

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago

The number one differentiator for me is whether we are forced to use cameras or not. I never turn one on unless specifically asked. And even then, I tend to turn it off anyway after some time of possible. If it's turned off, then I don't have to put with this crap that most people do, that is meetings for the sake of meetings. On the other hand, the actual meetings where we meet with one or two colleagues and we work on blockers etc. are extremely useful, engaging, and instead of fatigue I feel satisfaction. (Maybe because instead of my face, I show my screen).

ochronus 3y ago

Here are a couple of tips on how to mitigate zoom fatigue: https://leadership.garden/zoom-fatigue/ https://leadership.garden/zoom-fatigue/ - Move further away from the screen - Take breaks between calls - Use a standing desk or a treadmill desk - Have no-camera sessions - Hide self-view

jokethrowaway 3y ago

True but I hate real life meetings too. We really need to stop talking about (just) remote and start talking about async. That's the game changer: everything should be written and recorded, people should favour writing in issue threads or chats over having a meeting and keeping meetings for the essential sessions.