“Zoom Fatigue” and Education

If you’re reading this, you already know I am a huge proponent of in-person educational experiences for all students. In fact, most of the work we have done this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been with an emphasis on keeping as many students as possible on campus for as many hours as possible as safely as possible. Some of this was due to my own household’s experience with distance learning at the end of the 2019-20 school year, and some of it, frankly, was due to my gut feeling that in-person educational experiences, when possible, are superior to distance learning experiences.

I recently read an article in "Technology, Mind, and Behavior" that attempts to explain—beyond a “gut” feeling—why we respond the way we do to extended stints on videoconferencing platforms like Zoom. The term “Zoom fatigue” has become almost ubiquitous in our socially distanced world, but as Jeremy N. Bailenson points out in “Nonverbal Overload: A Theoretical Argument for the Causes of Zoom Fatigue,” our fatigue may be due to much more than our mere boredom with interacting with our screens. The reasons Bailenson points out for our fatigue strike me as not only plausible but also vitally important to understanding what we are asking of students and educators when we ask them to “Zoom in” to classes for hours at a time.

Bailenson writes that there are four main causes for the fatigue we experience as a result of extended videoconferencing meetings:

His article is well worth reading in its entirety not only for a detailed description of the phenomena listed but also for its grounding in real sociological and behavioral studies and experiments. However, Bailinson’s focus is largely on the world of working adults and I could not help wondering about the world of education and how it may be impacted by overreliance on videoconferencing technology.

Take, for example, Eye Gaze at a Close Distance. When we look at a screen filled with the faces of our colleagues or classmates, our distance from the screen dictates the perceived “closeness” of the individuals. “On Zoom grids,” Bailenson writes, “faces are bigger in one’s field of view than they are face-to-face when one accounts for how groups naturally space in physical conference rooms.” Therefore, the size of the faces in our frame of reference brings those faces into a personal space with us usually reserved for those with whom we share our most intimate relationships. Moreover, Zoom meetings force an unnatural and often unnerving prolonged simulated eye contact. Imagine being in a packed elevator and having everyone in such a close personal space staring you directly in the face for minutes—or in the case of remote learning, hours—at a time!

This suggests that with remote learning we are asking students as young as three years old to engage in a socially awkward proximity to adults that are not their parents, grandparents, or guardians. What impact might doing so have on the development of social norms moving forward? How are we impacting students who are developing an adolescent sense of self? How uncomfortable are we unintentionally making our children?

The Cognitive Load demanded by extended Zoom meetings is also a concern. In normal, face-to-face conversation human beings send and receive a constant stream of nonverbal communications. Many, if not most of these communications are lost in a videoconferenced meeting. Therefore, we compensate by working harder to make ourselves seen and understood. Bailenson explains, “Examples include centering oneself in the camera’s field of view, nodding in an exaggerated way for a few extra seconds to signal agreement, or looking directly into the camera (as opposed to the faces on the screen) to try and make direct eye contact when speaking. This constant monitoring of behavior adds up.” Moreover, the nonverbal cues that we do receive do not match with the verbal conversation or lesson being shared. Individuals glancing off-screen are not looking at the student next to them, a smirk or a chuckle may be the result of a pet entering the room and not the teacher’s instruction, and a yawn is likely to be due to the fatigue of watching a screen for long periods of time or the temperature of an individual’s room. This means that the signals we’re receiving as students and teachers do not match what our subconscious picks up naturally and we have to do the extra work. Moreover, the lack of body language on the screen means that there is an exaggerated—and sometimes unintended—importance placed on facial expressions and eye movements that in turn can be misinterpreted.

School is challenging, and a rigorous educational experience like the one offered at The Meadows School is designed to ask students to work hard. What are we asking of students on top of our lessons and the content of our discussions? Is it fair to pile on the cognitive load of a long Zoom meeting and expect them to learn long division at the same rate they would in person?

An All-Day Mirror describes what I personally find most exhausting about a day full of Zoom meetings. I have often found myself merely looking at my own response to the meeting’s content, even when I’m trying mightily to stay engaged with what is being said. Moreover, ongoing exposure to one’s own visage may prove detrimental to mental health. Indeed, in tests, people who were given bad news and then asked to look into a mirror for a time afterward suffered even more negative cognitive effects than those who received the bad news without the mirror.

This is serious business for students. Effective education requires ongoing feedback for kids, and this feedback is going to be both positive and negative, congratulatory and corrective. We do not know how staring into their own faces for hours at a time may impact their self-image or their mindset regarding their ability to improve when asked to move on to the next lesson or activity. And one way or the other, monitoring one’s facial expressions and responses to a Zoom conference is once again an exhausting use of cognitive energy.

 

Reduced Movement may be the most obvious problem of all when thinking about the effects of Zoom fatigue on students. Zoom meetings tend to ask attendees to remain stationary. Most schools, even traditional and structured environments like The Meadows, could not be more different. There is a reason we have recess, and we get students up and around as much as we can. The brain loves movement, and physical activity aids in students’ academic, physical, and psychological well-being.

It’s not just structured activity that helps students refresh and refocus, either. A normal classroom features students getting up to get a drink of water, use the bathroom, sharpen their pencils, turn in assignments, and a hundred other small tasks that get the blood flowing. I know parents work hard to keep their children engaged and physically active when they are learning remotely, but even simply asking students to sit in front of a camera for extended periods is not a good approximation of an effective learning environment.

On the reverse, Zoom has been a real godsend during the pandemic in some ways. Some students have needed to remain remote learners out of health concerns, and taking them out of school entirely would not have been preferable to having them Zoom into classes. Moreover, videoconferencing technology has allowed us to run an Upper School with a reduced daily student population when required by the health district and the state. Zoom has also enabled us to continue educating students during quarantine due to COVID exposure. And finally, I know mine is not the only family that has utilized videoconferencing to keep in touch with friends and family during this unprecedented time.

One must, however, stare down the bad with the good. Much has been written about how the lack of in-person, face-to-face contact might be impacting school-aged kids, but I think we should also be concerned with the impacts of the mode of learning we have been forced to adopt. For all the revolutionary effects that Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet have had on our society and our workplaces, we do not have a clear picture of the negative impacts of these technologies. Early anecdotal reports indicate that students learning remotely are suffering higher levels of anxiety and depression, are suffering learning losses and delays, and are simply not thriving in ways we would expect them to during in-person learning. Again, how much of this is due to missing school and classmates, and how much of it is due to Zoom fatigue?

The Meadows School’s faculty, staff, parents, and students have responded heroically this year and made the best of an impossible situation. But this year has convinced me that one of the lessons we must take away from the pandemic is that schools have always been, above all, a human endeavor requiring human contact and connection. Current technology may provide a medium for that contact temporarily, but in the long run, our dedication to students and their success requires us to double down on what makes our institutions human, caring, and connected places and to call into question any medium that serves to limit our connectedness to one another.

Jeremy Gregersen
Head of School