Why You Can't Stay Engaged in Online Meetings—and How to Fix It
Although the technology has been around for quite a while, over the past year online meetings have become much more commonplace due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Not too long after the number of online meetings started to dramatically increase, many people began to notice that something about online meetings felt a little…off.
Not only is it harder to stay focused during online meetings, but they also seem to wear you out—both physically and mentally.
Meetings make up a large percentage of most people’s average workweek, and many classes are being moved online too in the past year. Most executives already feel like most meetings aren’t the best use of time, so the new added difficulties with fatigue and staying focused during online meetings has become a very real issue for many people.
This effect is so prevalent, it gained its own new slang term—Zoom Fatigue.
What is Zoom Fatigue?
Zoom Fatigue is the exhausted and burnt-out feeling that occurs after spending a lot of time in online meetings. It’s also the reason why it’s so hard to focus during online meetings too.
Although it’s named after Zoom, this feeling can occur with any online meeting platform, like Google Hangouts or Skype. Zoom Fatigue is most commonly associated with video conferencing, but it can happen with any communications platform, such as instant messaging on platforms like Slack.
Why You May Struggle to Stay Focused During Online Meetings
There are a number of proposed psychological reasons for why Zoom Fatigue happens. At the end of the day, it’s almost certainly a combination. All of these effects work together to lower our virtual meeting engagement and cause us to tire out quicker than usual.
Your Brain Works Harder to Look for Nonverbal Cues.
Scientists have found that 70 to 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal, such as changes in posture, facial expressions, and the like. When we meet online, our brains are together, but our bodies are not. This makes it much harder to get the normal amount of information we would from a face to face conversation. The result is that we focus more on words and facial expressions, causing fatigue and anxiety from prolonged direct eye contact.
In addition, the disconnect between language and nonverbal cues also leads us to perceive conflicting information—AKA Cognitive Dissonance—which quite literally causes our brains to consume more energy and has been shown to directly cause stress, anxiety, and exhaustion.
Seeing You Own Face and Other Large Faces is Pretty Distressing
Associate Professor Marissa Shuffler noted that most people have a sense of feeling watched while on camera, and a great sense of self awareness when seeing their own image. It’s like being on stage and looking in a mirror at the same time. That would be terrible!
On top of that, many studies have shown that an enlarged human face also causes our levels of the stress hormone cortisol to rise, triggering flight-or-fight mechanisms. Two thousand years ago when our brains evolved, another person’s face being large meant they were very close to you, which is very uncomfortable to say the least—and especially uncomfortable if you’re in your own home, which is normally a place of safety.
Calls With Many Participants Magnify These Problems
Imagine all of the negative psychological mechanisms we just talked about, and then multiply that effect. That’s what happens in large meetings when you’re looking at a screen filled with a dozen faces or more. It’s much harder to focus with so many faces to watch. The feeling of being watched is magnified. Nonverbal cues are even harder to spot—so your brain automatically looks that much harder to find them. It’s exhausting just writing about it!
The Adjustment to Virtual Meetings Happened During an Already Stressful Period
Most people began virtual meetings in earnest after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, during a very vulnerable time. Alongside all these negative effects of videoconferencing, there was also a lot of general unease due to quarantines.
Habits changed. Many aspects of life such as work, family, relaxation, learning, and intimacy all of a sudden began to happen in the same place. Those unfamiliar with digital technology experienced confusion and additional stress of learning the software as well. All of these things are major stressors.
Working From Home Without Experience Added Physical Distress Too
Studies have shown that when the transition to working from home regularly began, many people preferred to work from bed. This was especially true of young workers and students 18 to 30, who probably had a laptop but lacked any sort of home office.
Those of us who are more seasoned teleworkers know the hallmarks to making work from home a success, like establishing physical boundaries between work and life, ensuring you have a home office, the value of ergonomically aligned workspaces, and even blue light glasses. But those newer to the work from home life didn’t begin this way, which is likely why surveys showed a spike in neck and back pain, along with other increases in alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets of takeout food, and poor sleep.
How to Stay Engaged in Virtual Meetings and End Zoom Fatigue
Now that we know the most likely causes of this effect, we can get to work minimizing their impact! Follow the bullets below and
Set a designated workspace.
If you work remotely, it always helps to have a dedicated working space. This allows you to switch in and out of “work mode” easier, and allows you to focus more as well by reducing distractions. It's hard to stay engaged if you’re working from a place where your family might be milling about, or where you usually relax.Treat virtual meetings like in-person meetings.
Studies show that meetings are largely unproductive, and we’ve long held they should be reduced whenever possible—and the same goes for virtual meetings too!
When a meeting is necessary, there should always be an agenda and a clear goal. Set a hard stop time, and ensure you’re prepared with a clean desk and your phone set to silent—or better yet, in another room.
Are your meetings necessary? Check out our best practices for meetings to find out!Use “Focus Mode” exclusively.
Most virtual meeting software now allows you to toggle how your screen looks. You should always use the single-screen “focus mode,” which only shows whoever is speaking at that time. This greatly reduces the distraction of looking at many faces at the same time, and also helps ensure you’re not staring at yourself.Shrink the video when possible.
You can reduce those distractions even further by shrinking your window too. That way it doesn’t feel like the other people in the meeting are directly in your face. This can backfire if you have other distracting windows open, so be sure to focus on your agenda and listen if you shrink the window.Take notes.
Many on the team—your humble writer included—find it much easier to focus when taking notes. As an added bonus, writing down important information will also help you remember it, as well as give you a reference to go back to if you forget something. Just be sure you label all those .txt files with a date and the meeting topic!Don’t be afraid to say “no” to meetings!
Sometimes even with the best practices, you’ll still feel burnt out. If you start feeling anxious about online meetings coming up, remember you can always push or cancel them unless they’re incredibly important. If you’re feeling particularly fatigued, don’t be afraid to make the meeting voice-only and dial in instead of meeting face to face. Trust us—unless it’s a major meeting—the other participants won’t mind a bit.
In Closing
It’s been quite interesting to see how the new studies about Zoom Fatigue were so similar to problems of virtual work burnout we’ve faced in the past. Because 33Vincent has been remote for so long, many of our best practices for online meetings and virtual Executive Assistant work seem to have naturally evolved to combat these problems.
If you’re feeling the effects of major Zoom Fatigue, burnout, and stress, consider bringing on one of our highly experienced virtual Executive Assistants! We specialize in strategic gatekeeping and managing the day-to-day details, so you can regain your time and focus on what matters most.
33Vincent has many other resources to help you maximize your time and communication with your executive assistant.
