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Why is it so tiring to go to Zoom Univeristy?

  • Writer: InkSociety
    InkSociety
  • Nov 25, 2020
  • 3 min read

By Galiyan Zheng

UCSB


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This year, the coronavirus pandemic broke out suddenly, and online meeting software such as Zoom became necessary for study and work.


Using Zoom to carry our various social interactions is a last resort during the pandemic. In addition to online meetings, we also use Zoom to take online classes and even hold online parties. Simultaneously, it has many limitations; the most intuitive negative feelings are tiredness and embarrassment. I have been in online courses for a long time, and I feel exhausted physically and mentally.


So, how is "Zoom Fatigue" and this exhaustion caused?


"It's tiring to have only limited social interactions with others on zoom, because that's a factor that can boost a student's energy levels."
— Victoria Choi

In part, that software like Zoom is not designed for social networking. It can be used to improve work efficiencies, such as replacing an offline meeting with an online interview, avoiding the interviewer's busyness, and solving the problem of time and distance. But it isn't easy to carry our long-term social activities, such as an online course.


Going back to our "real life" social experience, staring at each other for a long time and at close range with many faces does not happen between colleagues nor classmates. And base on these long historical and cultural developments of our societies, we have gradually formed a kind of social etiquette in modern society, which will naturally show different degrees of "intimacy." For example, we can stand very close to our family and have physical contact with them, but we generally won't do that with strangers.


In some situations, we are "forced" to have physical contact with strangers, such as crowded subways. We will also adjust our states according to the current situation and avoid a kind of intimate "continuous gaze" by looking at our phone the road map. To create a silent social balance.


And this social balance that eliminates "continuous gaze" is also happening in the classroom. A 45 minutes discussion period with ten people, everyone takes turns to express their opinions, they can have body motions and eye contact to express their feelings. Students will listen to other people's speeches, turn their heads down, take notes, or look at their mobile phones from time to time, but we don't always stare at each other's faces. Even if you stare at the speaker in a real classroom, each time is only a few seconds.


On the other hand, every time you speak in the Zoom classroom, there will be a lot of faces looking at you, just like connecting off-site guests on a blind date show. Everyone unconsciously "continues watching" and is forced to receive and pay a lot of attention, but this attention is often numb and has no practical meaning. It's not weird if you are not tired after a few hours.


Compared with actual classrooms, online lessons can also lead to a lack of personal space, which is also a significant fatigue source.


There is a concept of space in the classroom in reality, and we can control and choose personal space. When we enter a classroom, we can choose seats according to our personal preferences, which row we like to sit in, and as far as we want to be from the professor.


"This excessive screen time definitely affects my mood and health, as it can get redundant and cause headaches."
— Eunice Kim

In the final analysis, the fatigue we feel in the Zoom classroom stems from continuous unconscious attention and uncontrollable social distance, which constitutes an overload of pressure outside of language communication. The burden of taking video online classes is that it has not nearly restored offline courses.


Some tips I use to help to make video calls less exhausting are: Avoid multitasking to be able to improve the productivities; Build in breaks, to look away from your computer and refresh your mind; Reduce onscreen stimuli to avoid mental fatigue; Make virtual social events opt-in, to keep yourself in a good mood to socialize with people.


In general, we are looking forward to a more user-friendly classroom environment. I hope that the epidemic will end as soon as possible and that we can return to the classroom in person. I also hope that more reasonable remote teaching methods can be popularized as quickly as possible to restore offline classrooms better.


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