We’re getting Zoom fatigue from staring at our screens

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There will be many abiding images of this pandemic, most of them heartbreakingly sad – but for light relief, so to speak, we will never forget the sight of Ming the Merciless broadcasting to all of Europe in his kacks.

Yet behind your giggles, a cold bead of sweat must have run down your back when you wondered if a version of this could ever happen to you.

Not the reality of being caught on camera with your trousers down as such – but just with forgetting how to frame your face or your location so as not to reveal too much to the world on Zoom.

Three months ago, we all thought this was a facility you used to focus your camera for the perfect shot; now apparently it has thrown up one of the phrases that will be inexorably linked forever more with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Because no sooner had we got to grips with conversing via our computer screens with postage stamp images of 20 people than we’ve all been hit by a new ailment.

It’s called Zoom fatigue.

Because having marvelled at the wizardry that allowed us to work from home and to host work conference calls by day and social ‘family quizzes’ by night, we’re now worn out from its entrapment.

There’s no hiding place on a Zoom call; if you yawn or look away, all of the rest can see you. If you’re over-imbibing the beer, they can see you too.

You must look interested; you must contribute; you have to remain animated – and you must, must, must put on your pants.

People started tuning into the news, not to see what our political leaders were actually saying, but to work out what books were on their bookcase or what wallpaper they had in the dining room.

Chat show guests were casually draping their IFTAs and Oscars on the mantelpiece behind them; those without awards were shoving that never-opened, mint copy of Ulysses onto the shelf where Jackie Collins previously lived.                                                                                

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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