A recent study led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz has found that “Zoom fatigue” is no longer affecting people as it did during the pandemic, debunking previous research and offering new insights into remote work dynamics.
A recent study led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has unveiled that the previously widely-reported phenomenon of “Zoom fatigue” is no longer an issue in today’s work environment.
“Zoom fatigue” became a significant topic during the COVID-19 pandemic when employees found themselves exhausted after a day of online meetings.
“And this was certainly what happened during lockdown,” Hadar Nesher Shoshan, a junior professor at JGU, said in a news release.
However, a new study conducted by Nesher Shoshan and Wilken Wehrt, an assistant professor at Maastricht University, revealed that video meetings are now no more tiring than face-to-face meetings.
“But we have found out by means of a recent study that this is no longer the case under the conditions that prevail today. In fact, it seems that video meetings are not more exhausting than face-to-face meetings,” Nesher Shoshan added.
The research, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, involved 125 participants who reported on their meeting experiences over 10 days.
The dataset spanned 945 meetings, 62% of which were video meetings.
Contrary to expectations, the study found no evidence supporting the existence of “Zoom fatigue” in the current work environment.
“Our initial hypothesis was that zoom fatigue still existed. After all, all previous studies had come to this conclusion, so there was no reason to doubt that this result was correct,” added Nesher Shoshan. “However, we found no evidence of the phenomenon! According to our findings, online meetings are not more fatiguing than in-person meetings.”
The researchers observed that meetings shorter than 44 minutes conducted via video were actually less exhausting compared to other meetings.
Nesher Shoshan postulates that the discrepancy between their study and earlier research is likely due to the different contexts in which the data was collected.
Previous studies used data from the height of the pandemic when lockdowns and the sudden switch to remote work created additional stressors.
“It is more likely that the cause of zoom fatigue was the pandemic situation itself rather than the online meeting conditions. Projected onto zoom meetings, linked as they were closely with lockdown, were all the negative aspects associated with the circumstances. People were missing their old way of life, their social contacts and were no longer enjoying their work. Our results highlight the importance in the social sciences of replicating research findings in the appropriate historical setting,” Nesher Shoshan explained..
This new research holds significant implications for remote work policies moving forward.
“We have been able, at least to some extent, to undermine the argument that online meetings while working from home can still cause burn-out among personnel even though the pandemic is over,” added Nesher Shoshan.