
The reason Zoom calls drain your energy – BBC Worklife - asamant
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting
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Waterluvian
I work remote and I've had years of working this out. What works really well
for me is to take a super laid back posture to the meeting. Just fancy free.
Speak relaxed and slowly almost like you'd expect The Dude Lebowski to.
Nobody's gonna talk over you. Your point will be heard. And any details can
always be caught in an email or DM later.

If I had to guess why, I think speaking slower and more chill hides away
latency effects, and subconsciously causes people to listen more carefully.
The cadence of speech also makes it more clear when you're about to say more
vs. When you're done talking. It also just relaxes you and gives you more time
to formulate the next string of words.

And I don't mean sound like an idiot stoner or offensive jerk. You're just on
a beach. Phoned in to be a subject matter expert. And once you've done your
part it's back to your book and Margarita. Just noodly relaxed body. Yeah
that's it.

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aviditas
I really appreciate this advice, and I plan to try this out tomorrow. I know
that I have a tendency to speak quickly, and I have been including verbiage to
indicate when I'm done talking to prevent people from interrupting. Just a
simple "that's it" or asking a question at the end has been helpful for me.

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wuwuno
Video is the problem.

I worked at one of the earliest IP based Video Conferencing companies back in
the early 90's. The video wore us out. We did video all the time for 3 years.

I've been working from home consistently since 2008, 3 different companies,
and we never use video, it's all audio conferencing, except maybe for an all
hands meeting where the company leaders are talking about something important.

If find video tiring and a waste of time. The video isn't good enough, or big
enough to pick up facial "clues", and since people aren't in the same room
body language is totally different.

Turn off the video everyone, and you'll be much happier.

Get a really good stereo wireless headset, that way you don't need to worry
about feedback or sounding like you are in an echo chamber. My headset lets me
roam all around my house, and since it's stereo I can listen to music between
meetings.

~~~
tluyben2
Agreed: been working from home a long time (25+ years) and I just never do
video chat; I say high with video on and then switch off. It makes all the
difference. I always take the call on my phone, so I do not see others either
(if they insist on doing video).

~~~
lowdose
When you switch the video off the others usually roll their eyes. When you
talk people are only shaking their head from left to right while making thumbs
up hand signals.

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jhayward
> _Video chats mean we need to work harder to process non-verbal cues like
> facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language;
> paying more attention to these consumes a lot of energy._

Welcome to the everyday experience of non-neurotypical people in every single
meeting you've ever had with them.

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ashtonkem
The problem is that you can’t make eye contact.

The one exception is FaceTime in an iPhone, FaceTime subtly edits your eyes to
make it look like you’re looking at the camera and not down at the screen. But
it doesn’t work with separate webcams, and no company uses FaceTime.

~~~
rusticpenn
I never realised that about FaceTime. I am surprised that other "big" names in
video conference market never thought of that...

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Pretty sure they realized that but they also realized that iPhone can do that
due to its FaceID 3D scanning sensor.

Good luck getting non nightmarish results without it.

Maybe once ML models are trained well enough we can expect good results
without FaceID.

~~~
ashtonkem
Even without FaceID, knowing the exact geometry of the screen and camera can
get you really close, which is something you can only get reliably with a
vertically integrated product. Meanwhile there is no possible way for Zoom to
know exactly where my webcam is on my monitor without a cumbersome setup and
calibration process.

Edit: nope, I was wrong, they used FaceID sensors.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macrumors.com/2019/07/03/io...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macrumors.com/2019/07/03/ios-13-attention-
correction-facetime/amp/)

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aaron695
We have a control, people who have remote worked for years.

This jumps everywhere on reasons, but experienced remote workers should start
getting 'Zoom fatigue' for some of these reasons.

And experienced remote workers should have already identified some of these
reasons.

Or it's a new technology we are a few weeks into using and that's tiring.

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andrewzah
Something that more people need to do with remote calls is wait after asking a
question- about a few seconds or so. Unmuting can take a second and one might
wait just a bit to make sure no one else starts speaking.

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Conaywea
And also your data

