{"id":4169,"date":"2020-05-18T12:10:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T19:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=4169"},"modified":"2020-05-18T12:10:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T19:10:35","slug":"how-to-avoid-the-phenomenon-of-video-fatigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/how-to-avoid-the-phenomenon-of-video-fatigue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phenomenon of Video Fatigue and How to Avoid It"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of information workers around the world are sheltering at home and using remote collaboration tools to stay connected and remain productive.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great thing that so many people have discovered the tools that we in the industry have been promoting for years, but it\u2019s unfortunate that a lot of people did so with no guidance nor experience \u2013 and no warning.\u00a0 Stories have begun popping up in the news about \u201cvideo fatigue\u201d (or the more colloquial \u201cZoom fatigue\u201d that acknowledges the tremendous growth of Zoom into the conversational lexicon).\u00a0 Users unfamiliar with days full of videoconferences and remote collaboration are experiencing real symptoms of eyestrain, neck fatigue and general stress that can all be associated with long stretches of collaboration technology use without appropriate guidance.<\/p>\n

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a webcast<\/a><\/span> to examine this phenomenon and help provide some of that missing guidance.\u00a0 I was joined by Ira Weinstein of Recon Research, Bryan Hellard of Wainhouse Research, Sam Kennedy of Poly and Vivienne Fleischer of PBergo.\u00a0 The five of us \u2013 four technologists and an ergonomics expert \u2013 identified and classified the reasons for this video fatigue and discussed how to prevent them.<\/p>\n

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The first point we made was that it\u2019s perfectly understandable for people to be experiencing fatigue during this crisis.\u00a0 No one expected to be thrown into a mostly unfamiliar situation as rapidly as we all did.\u00a0 End-users have described the speed at which everything changed causing a feeling similar to whiplash.\u00a0 There was no preparation and no time to begin gradually \u2013 we were all immediately thrown into the deep end of the collaboration pool.\u00a0 The stressors with that speed and with the pandemic in general were certainly a factor in experiencing the problem.<\/p>\n

When we broke-down the other causes of video fatigue, we classified the activities that could mitigate it into three areas:\u00a0 Planning Steps, Technical Steps and Ergonomic Steps.\u00a0 We discussed several elements in each area that would improve the situation.<\/p>\n