Zoom Fatigue
Remote meetings are exhausting.
There are lots of reasons Zoom Fatigue is a real phenomenon: back-to-back-to-back meetings without movement or a break, lack of environmental variety, intrusion of competing stimuli, and the constant stress of being ‘on-camera.’
While some of the factors contributing to Zoom Fatigue are beyond the control of a remote presenter, effective presenters should do everything possible to minimize audience Zoom Fatigue. And their effort is well worth it—every watt of cognitive energy saved from battling fatigue is a watt of cognitive energy that can be devoted to attention, engagement, participation, and thoughtful collaboration.
One particular cause of Zoom Fatigue that presenters can control is the larger psychological ‘distance’ between them and their audiences. Without careful attention, there is a loss of interpersonal interaction in remote presentations.
If we were together in a room and I thought a particular detail was especially relevant to you, I could make eye contact with you as I said it, I could pause and give you a subtle nod or smile, or I could take a physical step in your direction. There is a wide array of nonverbal tools that I can use to draw your attention to personally relevant information.
The problem is nonverbal alerts don’t work in remote presentations. No one can tell if you are specifically looking at them. You can’t step toward a specific audience member, nor can you direct your voice or gestures toward an individual. Devoid of these signals, your audience is left to continuously process every word to determine its relevance. It's exhausting.
Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take to make your remote presentations more energizing and effective.
1. Use Names
To overcome the loss of nonverbal alerts, purposefully substitute words. Use people’s names, identify teams, and call out groups by name.
“ This is really relevant to Jenna and her team...,” “Eric, this is going to help you move forward,” and “Everyone, this next point is absolutely critical...”
2. Be a Content Tour Guide
If alerts are critical to avoiding audience burnout, then having a presentation tour guide is a brain-saver.
As the presenter you should quickly identify and order your content. We call this a 'roadmap,' and it’s typically a sentence that briefly outlines your content. You can learn more about roadmaps here.
“Today we are going to talk about the causes of Zoom Fatigue, steps to alleviate it, and why it matters.”
“Now that you know what Zoom Fatigue is, there are three easy ways to combat it.”
Simple roadmaps like these—both for your overall presentation and each section—will allow your audience to shift precious cognitive resources from guessing and filtering to thinking more deeply and creatively about your content.
3. Produce ‘Snackable Segments’
Another way presenters can minimize Zoom Fatigue is to be maximally efficient, including compartmentalizing content into discrete, snackable segments.
Each segment should have a succinct and clear title, examples should be compact and to-the point, technology should be rehearsed and ready-to-go, and discussions should have a clear objective.
Each segment should be no more than 10 minutes to give your remote presentation a sense of momentum and provide your audience with tangible re-engagement points. The more in-depth you want to go, the more short segments you’ll need.
Times have changed since the emergence of coronavirus, including how to best communicate remotely. Combating Zoom Fatigue is critical if you want your audience to stay with you, meaningfully contribute, and have energy to act on your content after the remote presentation ends.