Written by Kristen Beckman
There’s no doubt that video conferencing platforms like Zoom have made a huge difference in maintaining productivity and allowing business to continue since the COVID-19 pandemic all but shut the world down two years ago. Now, with the pandemic stretching far beyond the temporary disruption we initially expected, many workplaces have adapted to a new permanent normal. Hybrid and fully remote work situations have become increasingly common, and as a result, video conferencing is likely to remain a staple of business communications even after the pandemic wanes.
According to Pew Research, more than 80 percent of Americans communicated via video calls during the beginning of the pandemic, driven significantly by the demands of business being done remotely. About 20 percent of Americans reported using video platforms often and 12 percent said the were on video calls several times a day. Initially, there was hope that virtual platforms would be an equalizer in the workplace, but while video conferencing has been an important productivity tool, it also has highlighted some interesting and perhaps unanticipated gender gaps and psychological consequences.
Virtual meeting environments can diminish nonverbal cues that enhance the pace and collaboration of in-person meetings, and that can exacerbate inequalities women tend to experience. Studies have found that in general, women are more frequently interrupted in meetings and are viewed as too emotional or less competent than their male counterparts when they speak passionately about a topic or talk more often on a call. In a recent survey by Catalyst of 1,100 U.S. working adults, 45 percent of women business leaders say it’s difficult for women to speak up in virtual meetings and one in five women say they’ve felt ignored or overlooked by colleagues during video calls.
In addition, video conferencing also could be putting an unequal amount of pressure on women to appear ‘put together’ while working remotely. Women tend to be evaluated on their appearance differently than men, a dynamic that is exacerbated by the extreme focus on participants’ faces during virtual meetings. In fact, some plastic surgeons have reported that requests for face and neck treatments have increased during the pandemic.
Only 55 percent of women currently working from home due to COVID-19 say they’re likely to always or sometimes enable video during video-conference meetings, compared to 65 percent of men, according to a Harris Poll. When women do intend to use video, they prepare. Eighty-five percent do their hair versus 74 percent of men, and 80 percent of women will change what they’re wearing as opposed to 71 percent of their male counterparts.
Women may also face different perceptions about their dual roles as professionals and parents during remote work, a fact that is made visually apparent in video calls. When men show off their children at work during such a call, it often is perceived as a sign of strength and endearment, whereas when women share their children in the work environment, it can be seen as a weakness or a distraction. Women, who are often responsible for more of the domestic work in the U.S., often turn their video off while trying to juggle work and parenting responsibilities.
Meanwhile, billions of conversations that would have been conducted face to face before the pandemic have instead been done by video. This has led to increased concerns about potential psychological effects, and scientists have been studying why video conferencing has such a marked impact on employees.
Video conferencing can literally be exhausting, and this has given rise to a new phenomenon referred to as Zoom Fatigue. It can impact everyone who spends much of their day in virtual gatherings, but particularly women.
One recent study found that women report greater fatigue than men related to video conferencing, perhaps because women tend to have longer virtual meetings with shorter breaks in-between. The study also looked at nonverbal mechanisms associated with video conferencing that may cause Zoom Fatigue. For instance, an increase in viewing an image of oneself during virtual meetings can lead to something called mirror anxiety caused by self-focused attention.
Another mechanism that can lead to Zoom Fatigue is the feeling of being physically trapped by a need to stay within the field of view of the camera during meetings. Reduced mobility, said the report, can decrease cognitive performance and limit the type of multitasking that was more prevalent during pre-pandemic voice conferences. The phenomenon of ‘hyper gaze’ is another exhausting element of video conferences, said the report. During in-person meetings, participants tend to follow the speaker in the room with their eyes, but during virtual meetings, all participants have the unnatural feeling of constantly being stared at by everyone, which can lead to anxiety.
While more research is needed, the study suggests Zoom Fatigue might be mitigated by adopting policies around video conferencing, such as implementing time limits on video calls and specifying that some virtual meetings or subsets of those meetings be conducted without video.
What have you noticed about video conferencing during the pandemic? Tell us at LinkedIn.
