Making virtual meetings much less tiring, according to science
When employees were forced to work from home during the COVID-19 lockdowns, several videoconferencing platforms soared in popularity. In a post-pandemic world, we continue to videoconference with nearly as much regularity. In fact, many companies have no plans to bring staff back to the office on a full-time basis. The video call is here to stay, and it’s leading to exhaustion dubbed videoconference fatigue (VF), or Zoom fatigue.
Virtual meeting fatigue is real
Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore claim that a simple feature can beat VF, and it’s been in the background all along – literally. They found that backgrounds exacerbate VF. The findings were published in the journal ‘Frontiers in Psychology’. This factor hadn’t been fully taken into account until now. The team of researchers believes that the blurred or static image background we choose to hide what’s behind us says a lot about who we are. “The virtual background is not merely a decoration – it influences how users perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others,” commented co-author and NTU researcher Heng Zhang. The research team analysed 284 men and 326 women living in Singapore between the ages of 22 and 76 on the types of Zoom virtual backgrounds (static image, blurred image, video) they used. They worked from home on average 3 days per week and 8 hours a day. The researchers measured VF using a five-point scale signifying levels of general, visual, social, motivational and emotional fatigue.
Much more than just a background
Users choosing nature-themed, casual and light-hearted backgrounds experienced the lowest levels of VF. Those using blurred backgrounds, office settings and public spaces reported higher VF levels. The study offered several recommendations on the use of virtual backgrounds to reduce VF. For work-related meetings, it recommended static images of mountains and forests, as well as moving visual images such as waves crashing on a shore. Now who could get stressed out looking at wooded wonderlands or breathtaking beaches?
Keywords
virtual meeting, online, meeting, employee, videoconference, videoconference fatigue, Zoom fatigue, background