Zoom Camera Fatigue Is Real

Many people believe that scheduling more meetings equates to being more productive.

Being reactive to constant meetings and emails can lead to a lack of control over your time and hinder your ability to think and lead. During Zoom meetings, team members are encouraged to turn on their cameras to improve focus and prevent multitasking. But, there are also valid arguments for keeping cameras off, such as the risk of embarrassing mishaps or distractions.

Being on camera restricts physical mobility as it requires sitting still in a small field of vision. This discourages stretching, leaning, and turning, which are usual in-person behaviors.

When on camera, our brains work harder due to technical issues and monitoring nonverbal cues from everyone in the meeting.

We also tend to center ourselves in the camera’s field of view, exaggerate nods, and look at the camera instead of the screen to imitate eye contact. Calls are necessary in this virtual remote world of the knowledge era, however, maybe we should revisit the obsession with looking at each other micro expression through a laggy connection.