SCREEN BURN Why videoconferencing is so tiring and what you can do about it
“After a week of shelter-in-place, I was just flabbergasted by how intense and exhausting it was,” wrote Jeremy Bailenson, a Stanford University professor, in a piece by Microsoft Research (pcpro.link/316fatigue) that examined why people found online meetings so much more tiring than the real thing.
On the surface, this doesn’t make sense. In important meetings, we need to be on top form: we need to judge how, when and with whom to interact; think on our feet; and simply be alive to all the messages, verbal and physical, being transmitted. The adrenaline that carries us through such meetings quickly dissipates once they end, leaving us drained.
You’d think that online meetings would be more relaxed affairs. You’d be wrong. “It is a lot more tiring,” said Professor Paul Lee, co-director of research at the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, who along with the rest of his profession has switched to online meetings and consultations. “Previously, we could sneak out for a coffee; nowadays, meetings are back to back. There’s no opportunity for socialisation and our downtime is greatly reduced.”
Nor are these the only factors. The Microsoft study corroborated that remote collaboration is more mentally) confirmed that the high levels of sustained concentration needed lead to fatigue after about 30 to 40 minutes of meetings. In a day filled with such video calls, stress is measurable about two hours into the day. This begs one question: why?
