Online meetings can be a great way to connect with your team members from a distance, but they’re also exhausting. Learn why virtual meeting fatigue is so common and how to combat it.
As with all forms of burnout, regular virtual meeting fatigue can have a negative impact on your health and your work performance. Understanding what causes it and how to prevent it can help you feel more prepared for upcoming meetings.
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Lack of body language
In online meetings, people may miss vital information or get distracted by noises and distractions. When this happens, they often end up feeling exhausted and drained from the effort required to keep their attention focused on a screen.
Body language is a powerful tool for communication, but it’s not always easy to interpret in a virtual setting. This is because of the lack of eye contact in online meetings and the fact that people might not be able to see each other’s facial expressions.
However, there are ways to improve your body language in an online meeting. Using the right posture is one of them. By sitting up straight, you can show that you’re confident and engaged in the conversation. You might also want to raise your eyebrows to indicate that you’re listening. You can even lightly nod your head in agreement if you’re sure about what you’re saying.
Lack of face-to-face interaction
Face-to-face interaction is crucial to successful communication. It allows you to communicate clearly and concisely, and it helps you establish trust with your colleagues.
However, it’s not always easy to make face-to-face interactions happen when you’re juggling a busy schedule and working remotely. Technology can be a big distraction, and it’s also difficult to look people in the eye when you’re sitting at your desk in your home office.
In addition, technical mishaps can interrupt your concentration and distract you from the conversation. Plus, it’s difficult to follow conversations over the phone if you’re a visual learner.
A study published in PLOS One showed that face-to-face interaction improves social transmission of information. It found that test subjects performed better when they could observe an instructor’s hand, as well as their eyes, gaze and facial movements.
Lack of trust in technology
It’s no secret that trust in technology is a major issue right now. Whether it’s social media spreading disinformation, inherent bias baked into AI, or data privacy violations, users are becoming more skeptical of tech and companies that use it.
For example, a new survey of over 25,000 internet users revealed that social media companies are the top source of user distrust on the Internet. This is a serious problem, as it threatens to diminish the digital economy’s potential for development.
To further understand the role of trust in electronic markets, a systematic literature review was conducted. This included 29 studies that analyzed a variety of theories related to trust (Marketing, Psychology, Economy, Sociology, Management and Organization Science, Computing, Information Systems, and Philosophy).
Lack of planning
If you’ve ever tried to conduct an online meeting, then you probably know that the experience can be exhausting. There are lots of reasons why this is the case, but one of the most common is the lack of planning.
This can make it hard to organize the meeting and make sure that everyone is on the same page. It can also lead to missing key information and deadlines, which will inevitably have a negative impact on the entire project.
A well-planned meeting can be a great way to get your team on the same page and help you avoid any embarrassing mishaps down the road. For example, you could set up a shared screen to show each person the presentation before it’s started. Alternatively, you can use a virtual whiteboard to keep everyone on track.