Feeling Zoomed Out? You’re Not Alone!

Video meetings have been a priority in recent years due to the changes caused by the pandemic in different parts of the world. People relied on platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to continue their work. But all these video meetings seem to have taken their toll on people, what many have called “Zoom fatigue,” which could also be Google Meet fatigue.

Now there is scientific data that is said to point to the effects of long video meetings on your brain and heart. The data was provided by a team of Austrian researchers, where they tested 35 university students for brain and heart activity while they participated in a 50-minute video conference.

In fact, the tests also suggested that students who attended video lectures needed a break after a 30-minute session.

Due to the interest of the matter, 18 of these students were forced to attend the lectures in person and the rest to watch it through video meetings. The researchers noted that 50-minute video conferencing had higher levels of fatigue than face-to-face meetings.

The author of the study also mentioned that people should see video meetings as a complementary platform to face-to-face meetings and not as a substitute. These findings also suggest that it would be worthwhile to consider returning to the office to work in preference to working remotely more often, but according to other studies, working time flexibility and limiting commuting time directly benefit employees who generate better returns.

You can say that the sample size of the testing is small to determine a major concern, but it’s hard to ignore the impact of these platforms and how multiple video calls per day can affect people or have affected people over the past three years.