Hybrid Work 
While most companies are planning their return to office in late-2021 and early-2022, employees are expecting to continue their cadence of video calls whether they’re working from home or from the office.
To get prepared, we’ve written a follow up to our post Zoom Fatigue is Real, to find out how fatigued people really are with their virtual meetings.
Earlier this year, the team at Stanford released a new study that shows certain groups of people are disproportionately affected by Zoom Fatigue – most notably, women. Below are a few takeaways from the study, along with a link at the bottom of the article if you want to find out your own Zoom Fatigue Score, and how you compare to approximately 10,000+ other people who completed the survey.
Women Experience 2.5x More Zoom Fatigue than Men
Based on the results of more than 10,000 survey responses, 13.8% of women felt “very” or “extremely” fatigued as opposed to 5.5% of men who felt the same. Generally speaking, women had similar numbers of meetings as male respondents however the female respondents’ meetings ran for extended periods of time. Men were also more likely than women to take breaks between meetings, which meant they had an opportunity to recharge.
Self-View is the Biggest Contributor
Despite the experience of looking at oneself having become relatively common since March 2020, an extended period of “self-view” is unnatural. The researchers found that women “have a greater propensity to self-focus than men” which leads to negative emotions and what the researchers deemed “mirror anxiety.”
Age and Personality Matter Too
While there were differences between the experiences of women and men, the survey results also varied based on the age, race and personality of respondents (specifically extraverts and introverts).
Introverts and anxious people experienced more negative results than extroverts. Interestingly, older respondents seemed better prepared to deal with extended periods of video conferencing than younger folks who reported higher levels of exhaustion.
What’s your Zoom Fatigue Score?
Whether you’re relatively unaffected by back-to-back video calls, or if you find them untenable, it’s important to take active steps towards minimizing the negative aspects of video conferencing.
Stanford recommends the following 4 tips:
- Have full days without video meetings.
- Turn off your video, if it isn’t essential or mandatory in that particular meeting.
- Talk to your colleagues, to see how they’re feeling about their video meeting capacity.
- Encourage your team to complete the survey below, and to share their results.
What’s your Zoom Fatigue Score? Find out by taking this survey.
