The researchers say that screen self-view may be the reason for this fatigue after a day of back-to-back online meetings.
The research shows that one in seven women (13.8%) compared to 1 in 20 men (5.5%) reported feeling ‘very’ to ‘extremely’ fatigued after Zoom meetings.
These new findings from the same researchers were recently published in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior, which revealed why people feel tired after video conferences and calls. They now have the data to show who is feeling stressed.
In a follow-up study, researchers surveyed 10,322 participants in February and March using Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale to better understand the differences in individual fatigue scores resulting from the extensive use of video conferencing technologies during the past year.
According to Jeffrey Hancock, professor of communication at Stanford University and co-author of the new research available online via the Social Science Research Network, these findings have led to an increased understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic may disproportionately affect certain groups of people.
Self-View Window
"We've all heard stories about Zoom Fatigue and stories that women are affected more, but now we have quantitative data that this type of stress is worse for women, and most importantly," Hancock said, "we know the reason.”
The researchers found that what contributed most to feelings of fatigue among women was an increase in what social psychologists describe as self-focused attention resulting from viewing oneself on screen in video conferencing.
“Self-focused attention refers to increased awareness of the way a person looks or how they appear in a conversation,” Hancock said.
To measure this effect, the researchers asked participants questions such as, "How worried are you about your appearance during a video conference?" and “How distracted are you by how you look on the screen, during a video conference?”
The researchers found that women answered these questions at higher rates than men. This finding is consistent with current research showing that women have a greater tendency to be self-focused than men when they are in front of a mirror, and Hancock explains that prolonged self-focus can produce negative feelings, or what researchers call "Mirror Anxiety".
An easy solution might be to change the default display settings and turn off Self-View.
What if they are using Email?
Zoom fatigue also makes women feel physically trapped by the need to stay centered in their camera view. Video conferencing limits movement, unlike face-to-face meetings, where people can move around, walk, or stretch. Another way to tackle this is to move away from the screen or turn off the video during parts of calls.
The researchers found that although women had the same number of meetings per day as men, their meetings tended to last longer, and they were also less likely to take breaks between meetings, all of which contributed to increased fatigue.
The pattern of women experiencing burnout from video conferencing more than men appears to be dominant. "We see this gender effect across multiple different studies, and even after taking other factors into account, it's a really consistent finding," Hancock said.
Facilitating work using Zoom
Organizations can reduce “Zoom fatigue” in several ways:
- Set days without video meetings: Set a day of each week that does not require any video meetings.
- Turn off the video during the meeting if it is not necessary: People should think carefully about whether the video is necessary for the meeting, and if not, turn on mandatory video-off feature so that no one feels pressured to keep it on.
- Find out if employees or colleagues are tired: Employees use the Stanford Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue Scale to measure fatigue and find solutions to help reduce it.
Personality types are also linked to Zoom fatigue. Extroverts reported lower levels of fatigue after video conferencing than introverts. Calm and emotionally stable people reported less fatigue than anxious individuals, who may also be affected by the self-attention elicited by the digital mirror.
Age also plays an important role. Younger individuals in the survey reported higher levels of fatigue than older participants, and while individuals can make changes to their work habits to avoid burnout, researchers are urging organizations to rethink how they manage their remote workforce.
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