Zoom Fatigue, Digital Drain, Virtual Ennui: Who else is sick of their screen?
by Rose Collard
I can’t be the only one whose reaction to the phrase ‘shall we do a Zoom quiz?’ is one of absolute trepidation. I just can’t. The persistent seepage of the virtual pub quiz into the minutiae of lockdown life has been nothing less than parasitic. Can you remember a world where blurry videos, indoor tinnies and questionable general knowledge rounds weren’t the mainstay of a Saturday night?
Once upon a time this was fun. Now, however, I’m strongly of the opinion that, like many popular lockdown pastimes (banana bread, sourdough, puzzles, TikTok) the virtual quiz has had its day. In fact, it never really had a day. Instead the virtual quiz - with a little help from a global pandemic - copied its cooler, better, REAL LIFE older cousin: the actual pub quiz. Now I’m not knocking the idea of the virtual quiz (as I said, once upon a time it was fun). I do believe my resistance to the trend is part of a much wider, and very well-documented, lockdown ailment: Zoom Fatigue. Or, to use my much jazzier nomenclature: Virtual Ennui. (Say that to your boss next time they suggest a virtual Thirsty Thursday: ‘apologies, I am suffering from a bad bout of Virtual Ennui and will be unable to attend’.)
Names aside, the prevalence of sheer tiredness when it comes to online socialising is huge, with publications from Harvard Business Review to Mindful offering advice on how to combat the mode. As well as providing some helpful tips, these articles remind us that actually it’s okay to experience weariness from virtual meet ups - because they are way, way tougher than face-to-face ones. Indeed, research cited in National Geographic shows that the imperceptibility of body language on online calls means your brain works even harder to pick up on social cues.
Video chatting, especially en masse, also necessitates what psychologists call ‘continuous partial attention’, where “we’re engaged in numerous activities, but never fully devoting ourselves to focus on anything in particular” according to Andrew Franklin, an assistant professor of cyberpsychology at Virginia’s Norfolk State University. That’s why it’s all too tempting to send some emails or check your phone whilst on a work Zoom call: your attention is already unhelpfully divided, so it feels easy to just divide it some more. Next time you feel the urge to do so, though, it would be wise to try and resist. Your multi-multi-tasking will (and this is scientifically proven) only serve to further your tiredness. Franklin also suggests turning your camera off if you are finding the amount of visual stimuli on online calls too overwhelming.
Speaking to a friend (who is isolating alone) on this subject the other day, she said that speaking to people virtually just doesn’t help her loneliness anymore. Despite her phone being pretty much glued to her side - as is mine, as is yours too, I imagine - she said she feels more disconnected from friends than ever, and the increased virtual contact is only making it worse. Recently, whilst expressing this loneliness to a friend over WhatsApp, the friend offered to call her. But, bizarrely, a call was the last thing my friend wanted, and so she declined the invitation. I’m sure this situation will resonate with many. When you’re craving social contact, pseudo-contact through an electronic device just doesn’t measure up.
There’s always been something a little off about speaking to or seeing friends online, but that was always assuaged by the knowledge that this was only temporary contact: a choice, even, chosen to make the time between meetings pass by a little sweeter. Now, faced with the possibility of more months of uncertainty, online socialising has become the new norm, and with this its functional agreeableness as the middle-man of relationships has been usurped. Italian management professor Gianpiero Petriglieri put this beautifully in a recent tweet: “it’s easier being in each other’s presence, or in each other’s absence, than in the constant presence of each other’s absence.”
What I’m trying to get at, then, is that it’s okay to say no to that 684th Zoom quiz invitation. This right now is not normal living, and if online socialising is giving you a nasty case of the Virtual Ennui then I say to hell with it all. You can’t fit your old social life onto a screen - that is, quite frankly, impossible. Think about the excess of flakiness we experience in our old social lives: the missed coffee dates; the ‘double booked’ birthday parties; the dinners we worm out of on the day. If the digital world is the reason we can get away with this flakiness (thank goodness for the last minute ‘I’m bailing’ text) then why should we now be held at the behest of digital-only social commitments? There’s enough to be anxious about right now without the added pressure of keeping up online appearances. (That said, if you enjoy the virtual socialising then you Zoom away to your heart’s content.)
The important thing to remember, I think, is this: your friends will still be there when this ends. If they’re going to fall out with you over a couple of missed online meet ups, then they weren’t worth holding on to in the first place.
Title image by Andriana Chunis, a fashion illustrator.
