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N E W S
"The people
who move the
conversa tion
forward are the
people who have
video and audio
on."
Alex Lindsay, 090 Media
periodically during meetings to take an
"audio-only" break.
But that could be problematic, says
Lindsay.
"The people who move the conversation
forward are the people who have video
and audio on. You start turning it off
and… you put yourself at a huge disad-
vantage of connecting to your client or
your boss or your co-workers," he says.
T he core issue that should be
addressed is the number and length of
meetings, he says, citing Google as an
example, which relies heavily on video
for meetings but rarely schedules
meetings over 25 minutes.
"This produces a more focused and
productive conversation," says Lindsay.
To combat Zoom fatigue, it's important
not to put the burden on individuals
and to have institutions, companies and
governments step up through training,
investments and setting new norms,
says Hancock.
"A year in, I think there's no reason
not to be doing that."
For instance, Citigroup has now
banned face-to-face video conferencing
on Fridays, he says.
"It's an example of an institution
trying to help their employees, because
if they're fatigued, they're cogni-
tively loaded, they're going to be less
happy and have lower well-being," says
Hancock. "You need to see investment...
in new technologies that are going to
support video conference since it's likely
to be a part of the future of work."
CHRR
a large enough number of people that
don't want to go back, that the chances of
going back to the way the world used to
be are very low. And, so, this is probably
not a skill set that is going to become
obsolete, even as the vaccine rolls out."
Combatting Zoom fatigue
There are a few potential solutions to
Zoom fatigue, says Bailenson in his
study. For one, people can take Zoom
out of the full-screen option and reduce
the size of the Zoom window relative to
the monitor to minimize face size. Also,
they could use an external keyboard to
sit further back from the screen and hide
the self-view to avoid that distraction.
Another option is to turn the video off
