Zoom Fatigue
In this time of remote working and isolation from friends and family, platforms like Zoom have been a great resource to stay connected and to be able to continue working.
At Vitality360 we routinely use remote platforms to conduct our business, including to support clients on our rehabilitation programmes. We know from our experience that our clients with persistent pain and/or chronic fatigue find travelling to appointments in clinics very demanding, so being able to engage from home is beneficial. Our clinicians also benefit from being able to see how the client functions within their home environment.
However, for those people who are not used to working on platforms such as these, it can bring some challenges which are worth being aware of.
“The problem is that the way the video images are digitally encoded and decoded, altered and adjusted, patched and synthesized introduces all kinds of artifacts: blocking, freezing, blurring, jerkiness and out-of-sync audio. These disruptions, some below our conscious awareness, confound perception and scramble subtle social cues. Our brains strain to fill in the gaps and make sense of the disorder, which makes us feel vaguely disturbed, uneasy and tired without quite knowing why.”
— Kate Murphy The New York Times
Interacting this way isn’t natural
This is a fairly obvious thing to say but it’s worth remembering. We are social animals and we are attuned to picking up a variety of cues in our social interactions, such as body language, pauses, etc. Without these mechanisms, engaging remotely can demand more energy to decipher what is going on. It can be especially challenging in group scenarios where it is difficult to ‘read the room’ and orientate oneself to relational dynamics (such as turn-taking and so on). It’s harder to read often subconscious facial mimicry or mirroring, for example, which is one of the key ways that we engage and empathise with others, discern their reactions and thereby predict what they will do in our social encounters. Consciously or unconsciously, we are having to do more work, and this can be tiring.
“This is foremost because human beings are exquisitely sensitive to one another’s facial expressions. Authentic expressions of emotion are an intricate array of minute muscle contractions, particularly around the eyes and mouth, often subconsciously perceived, and essential to our understanding of one another.”
— Kate Murphy The New York Times
Seeing yourself whilst interacting is a bit odd
This is a strange aspect of video calls that can divert our attention away from engaging fully with another person as we would face-to-face. I notice that I am automatically drawn to watching myself and this is dangerous territory given the ferociousness of my inner critic at times. It can also feel quite intimidating as a number of eyeballs are fixed on you when you are speaking, rather like an intense job interview! I like the tip of popping a post-it note over myself on the screen.
The tendency to keep saying yes…
Given that everyone is supposedly ‘available’ at this time, it’s easy to feel that there’s no need to actually schedule calls and time spent online, like one would ordinarily manage one’s diary. Friends of mine who are working remotely as therapists can easily spend up to 6 hours on calls in one day, and that is without connecting with family members or friends for more social activities.
Spending too long staring at a screen increases the likelihood of forgetting our physical body and can cause issues such as fatigue, headaches, and pain due to poor posture, if we aren’t moving around or changing our position frequently.
As with much in life, balance is key.
We all know this and yet can struggle to be mindful of it in our daily lives, which can feel particularly pressurised under lockdown conditions. It’s wise to minimise the amount of time spent on each video call, to schedule in time for breaks between calls and to switch activities as much as possible. Taking time to look out of the window or step outside whilst drinking a cuppa can help to maintain a healthy balance and minimise ‘screen-fatigue’. For more tips on maintaining balance see our blog ..