TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Load shedding returns, and may last until Thursday

      16 August 2022

      Jo’burg to issue RFP for 500MW of electricity ‘within weeks’

      16 August 2022

      MTN hires outgoing Icasa CEO Willington Ngwepe into top role

      16 August 2022

      Rain in embarrassing climbdown over Telkom statement

      16 August 2022

      Coal miner Seriti plans R12-billion Mpumalanga wind farm

      16 August 2022
    • World

      Semiconductor boom turns to bust

      16 August 2022

      Tencent plans to offload R400-billion Meituan stake: sources

      16 August 2022

      Ether leaps higher on verge of Merge

      16 August 2022

      Institutions eye crypto but retail investors remain nervous

      15 August 2022

      Tencent woes mount, even after $560-billion selloff

      12 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Africa Data Centres
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»In-depth»Zoom burnout: Be more productive and ditch those video calls

    Zoom burnout: Be more productive and ditch those video calls

    In-depth By The Conversation18 March 2021
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    Just as other brand names make their way into the dictionary, Zoom has now become a daily verb and a noun. We Zoom each other, we say, “Let’s have a Zoom”, and we get Zoom fatigue. Now there’s Zoom burnout as well – a phrase that encompasses a lot more than the eye strain of too much screen time.

    Emerging research shows we get less done and we may end up unnecessarily replicating communication in our personal and working lives. A new study highlights the causes of this fatigue and how to deal with it.

    Too much Zooming can become mentally demanding. There’s a lot of evidence that when people are mentally tired, they tend to act less efficiently. Sustained performance on a mentally demanding task decreases over time.
    Also, when we’re fatigued, our working memory performs less well. We become forgetful, our listening quality degrades and recording Zoom meetings for later viewing simply creates more energy-sapping screen time.

    The online meetings designed to get things done could be the very things harming our productivity

    The online meetings designed to get things done could be the very things harming our productivity. And there’s some evidence that using audio only might be more productive than an overload of screen meetings.

    The new study highlights the psychological impact of spending hours each day on a range of video-calling platforms. The study found people often reach “non-verbal overload” with too much eye contact. This means we need to work harder to send and receive all those non-verbal signals that are lost when many of us are just a head filling the screen.

    The good old phone

    In face-to-face meetings, another study points out, nonverbal communication flows naturally and “we are rarely consciously attending to our own gestures and other nonverbal cues”. This is one of the reasons many people can’t wait to get back to face-to-face meetings. For others, Zooming is fine until the fatigue kicks in, then an unease arises.

    This is where the good old phone meeting could come in. The same study describes “a wonderful illusion that occurs during phone calls”. We’re no longer weighed down with nonverbal overload or eye contact meltdown. We may even stretch, move around the room, even make a cup of tea as we speak.

    We tend to imagine we are getting 100% of the others’ attention on a phone call. The researchers conclude that “only a minority of calls require staring at another person’s face to communicate successfully”.

    Many experts are now calling for fewer Zoom meetings.

    Yet, evidence for seriously considering meeting over the phone comes from other academic work that goes back a lot further. Early studies comparing TV radio, newspapers and computer screens identified newspapers as enabling significantly highest recall of facts. Computer screens surprisingly performed closer to newspapers and better than TV and radio. So, one up for the screens? The problem is we tend to remember less when we have screen fatigue.

    In contrast, a lot of research confirms how radio stimulates the imagination. “I prefer radio to TV because the pictures are clearer,” goes the old saying. Whether with the phone, radio or podcasts, our active imagination is more engaged actively listening than when we passively view. And we can become very passive when we’re screen exhausted.

    Some neuroscience research has confirmed that when our imaginations are active, they can become more emotionally stimulated. Scientists have interpreted this as an indicator that the audio content requires active imagination on the part of the listener.

    The imaginative process inherent in the audio call increases the likelihood that we’ll make good on our intentions

    One further piece of research becomes critical here, suggesting that imagination runs hand in hand with motivation. According to this view, imagination can make us more goal directed, more likely to get things done. Zoom fatigue can have the opposite effect. The imaginative process inherent in the audio call increases the likelihood that we’ll make good on our intentions.

    If this is true – and there needs to be more research in the problem – it will certainly be time to become more conscious of when and how often we meet on Zoom, for how long and for what purpose.

    Try holding some of your work meetings by phone. It might seem strange at first and take a bit of getting used to, but you might just find your meetings are more productive and satisfying. Your imagination might kick into gear and re-fire your motivation. I’m not saying banish all the Zooming, just rebalance your use of audio and screen.The Conversation

    • Written by Paul Levy, senior researcher in innovation management, University of Brighton
    • This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence
    top Zoom
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleUS probing suspected Tesla Autopilot crash into police vehicle
    Next Article Google may face antitrust action over cookie ban

    Related Posts

    African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

    11 August 2022

    The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

    7 August 2022

    As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

    2 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    HPE SimpliVity: addressing SMBs’ data conundrums

    16 August 2022

    Digital transformation – don’t get caught unprepared

    16 August 2022

    Seven reasons your business needs IP surveillance cameras

    15 August 2022
    Opinion

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 2022

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.