During the pandemic, video calls became a way for me to connect with my aunt in a nursing home and with my extended family during holidays. Zoom was how I enjoyed trivia nights, happy hours and live performances. As a university professor, Zoom was also the way I conducted all of my work meetings, mentoring and teaching.
But I often felt drained after Zoom sessions, even some of those that I had scheduled for fun. Several well-known factors – intense eye contact, slightly misaligned eye contact, being on camera, limited body movement, lack of nonverbal communication – contribute to Zoom fatigue. But I was curious about why conversation felt more laborious and awkward over Zoom and other video-conferencing software, compared with in-person interactions.
As a researcher who studies psychology and linguistics, I decided to examine the impact of video-conferencing on conversation.
Read the full article at The Conversation.
