Meeting 23/02/21: Is Learning on Zoom the Same as In Person?

Today we discussed Wiederhold’s (2020) paper on connecting through videoconferencing technology during the Covid-19 Pandemic and how to avoid the ‘Zoom Fatigue’.

Zoom fatigue is the tiredness, anxiety, or worry resulting from overusing video conferencing platforms, and according to Wiederhold (2020), one of the main reasons for it is that videoconferencing is more demanding than in-person communication. Some of the other reasons she gives involve video communication being out of sync to our brains – ‘millisecond delays in virtual verbal responses negatively affect our interpersonal perceptions, even without any internet or technical issues’, the time we spend looking at ourselves when in a live session, multitasking (call, children, phone, email, etc.), the process of a lot of stimuli, and the prolonged eye contact. Regarding the latter, our brains can process prolonged eye contact and enlarged faces as threatening and intimidating and consequently flood our bodies with stress hormones – brains can feel there is imminent danger.

The stress of currently working online is added by COVID-19 anxieties, the stress of letting a stranger into your home (via the webcam), being able to find a quiet place to work (and not be interrupted), issues with internet bandwidth, laptop dying out, etc.

Wiederhold (2020) presents some suggestions on how to facilitate communication online and potentially reduce zoom fatigue:

o bring the camera to eye level to promote social connection;
o make use of facial nonverbal cues obvious;
o make sure that your head and the top of your shoulders dominate your window;
o create the illusion of direct eye contact – you should look at your camera, not at the other participants;
o use a simple and clean background – less stimuli and more professionalism;
o be sure to avoid any side activities (e.g. phone, email, etc.) to stay fully engaged in the meeting;
o at times have cameras off if agreed by the group or turn off video feeds while not speaking in order to eliminate distraction and overstimulation;
o stagger meetings with non-screen breaks in between.

We also had a go at the virtual reality https://spatial.io/ – a program that enables people to meet through augmented or virtual reality (VR), allowing users to use VR headsets from a variety of brands to meet up in a virtual conference room with avatars and re-creating some of the nonverbal communication. It was good fun but we’re still skeptical at how VR can re-create the human connection and help reduce Zoom fatigue.

References

Wiederhold, Brenda K. (2020) Connecting Through Technology During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Avoiding ‘‘Zoom Fatigue’’. CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING, 23: 7, 437-439. DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2020.29188.bkw