Zoom meetings are the new thing, as is the fatigue that comes with them. As the pandemic hit the world and locked everyone in their homes, office meetings shifted from conference rooms to video rooms.
While video conferencing looked and sounded fun and interesting in the beginning, it was slowly starting to affect everyone’s mood, energy, and resources.
Also read | Should you be using the Zoom video conferencing app?
However, a new study has shown that “zoom fatigue” is real and is worse for women than men for a variety of reasons.
The study was conducted on nearly 10,500 people who were asked about their video conferencing experience during the coronavirus pandemic.
Also read | The video conferencing app Zoom admits that calls were accidentally routed through China
One of the main reasons that zoom video calls affect women is the ability to have your own picture on the screen. The physical problem was a major reason for the extreme fatigue.
Many women reported that they sometimes withdraw during meetings when they become too critical of the dark circles under their eyes or the double chin or the “fat chin” and more. Such self-criticism takes a toll on women and has a negative effect on them, leading to mental fatigue.
Also read | Why are there concerns about the security of the Zoom app?
The researchers also found that looking at their own picture for long periods of time had a negative impact on women.
It has also been shown that women tend to have longer meetings with shorter breaks, which may also be due to the type of work they do and also the balance between housework and work that they unfortunately had to maintain.
Also read | Dethrone, WhatsApp, TikTok video conferencing app Zoom outperforms download charts
Younger people have also reported higher levels of fatigue from videoconferencing, as they also had pressures to perform in front of their peers in certain ways and were exposed to extreme fatigue due to body image issues.
Non-whites also reported fatigue, but the reason was mainly their introverted nature, now stalled by easy access to video conferencing.
Researchers have advised people to turn off the self-view feature in the video conferencing software and websites to ensure attendees are less critical of themselves, with appropriate pauses in between, advising them to distance themselves from the screens.
