For decades we have been told that video conferencing would be a useful replacement for face-to-face meetings or an enhancement of remote communications. That is true, up to a point.
But, generally speaking, we are a long way from holographic telepresence that replicates the full sensory experience of communicating with a real person in real time, in person.
The mass “remote work” social experiment caused by Covid has provided an actual test of the value of video conferencing--and its issues and limitations--over most of the past two years.
And most of us might agree that it is a mixed blessing.
Zoom fatigue--the feeling of exhaustion many feel after too many video conferences--seems directly related to the amount of time spent videoconferencing every day, a study suggests. The feeling of burn out
There are physiological reasons, including the fact that cognitive load during a video conference is higher than would be the case for a face-to-face, in person meeting, scientists at Stanford University say. Other researchers agree that video conferencing requires higher cognitive load.
Video conferencing also inhibits the non-verbal clues humans use when communicating in person. So people are working harder to figure out what is going on.
Another study suggests that 49 percent of videoconference users report feeling “exhausted” after video conferencing.
Many surveys show that remote workers participate in more meetings than when they are in the office. And there is some evidence that younger workers experience more fatigue than older workers, according to a survey of 1700 employees and managers surveyed by Virtira.
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