How to cope with the Zoom boom

The coronavirus lockdown has turned us into solo actors performing on the glowing stages of our laptops and iPhones. As daily work and social interactions migrate to online video platforms, Zoom, Microsoft­Teams and Skype are transforming our living spaces into tiny theaters. Zoom alone estimates 200 million users worldwide work, teach, learn, exercise and socialize daily through their screens.

Now screen fatigue is threatening to become its own virtual pandemic. We need to put the human body back in virtual platforms. Theater can help.

As we spend hours staring at rows of disembodied heads on our computer screen, this pivot to online living is revealing its dangers. Many users report a peculiar exhaustion from these virtual sessions, popularly called “Zoom fatigue.”

The general anxiety people have about their health and the uncertainty about the future surely contributes to this tiredness, but Zoom fatigue goes well beyond this. As social animals, we suffer debilitating consequences from sustained periods of imposed isolation.

Mental weariness results from trying to identify in the facial expressions on a computer screen the nonverbal communication details we normally get from fully active bodies.

We are also kinesthetic and visual beings. We are wired to round out the meanings in verbal exchanges with attention to the many subtle movement and emotional cues bodies in motion project.

UCLA psychology Professor Emeritus Albert Mehrabian posited in an early study that an estimated 55% of communication comes from body actions; 38% from the tone of our voice and only 7% from the words we say. Virtual platforms invert this, relaying primarily words, some vocal tone (depending on the quality of the connection) and only minimal body actions.

Our exhaustion at the end of an extended Zoom session also may come from not treating it fully enough as theater. In live performances, actors and dancers communicate through their whole body. We intuitively scan for this communication in conversations, responding empathetically with muscular memories from our own body.

Bodies on virtual platforms such as Zoom lack this kinesthetic richness to trigger our own. They flatten the experience and leave us struggling with fragments when we need full information.

Gianpiero Petriglieri, a U.K.-based researcher who explores learning in the workplace, has noted how in Zoom we need to work harder to process the nonverbal cues we do receive like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language. “Our minds are together when our bodies feel we’re not,” Petriglieri says, noting this dissonance is exhausting.

Laura Dudley, director of the applied behavior analysis programs at Northeastern University, agrees many of the nonverbal cues we typically rely upon during person-to-person conversations are absent when Zooming. We seek eye contact and try to note subtle shifts that indicate someone is about to speak. We have to work even harder online to piece together the kind of information that flows freely to us in live exchanges.

We’re also not used to always being on view to ourselves. As we Zoom, we are laboring to monitor our own appearance even when others speak. Dudley likens this to having a meeting in front of a mirror, an arrangement that taxes our attention even further. Add to this the impossibility of looking someone in the eye on Zoom, and the cognitive gymnastics leading to mental fatigue intensify.

Growing numbers of self-help videos are being posted with suggestions about best camera angles and laptop placement for Zooming and Zoom glam attire. But the elements that make for compelling theater run much deeper. If implemented, they could help offset the debilitating effects of Zooming.

For example, house lights are dimmed during a theater performance to remove distractions and focus spectators on the performers. There are regular pauses — intermissions when everyone can stretch, get a drink and return refreshed to the performance. These tried-and-true theater conventions could become part of a new Zoom etiquette. I propose:

Turn off your own video and audio when you’re not the speaker.

Take a pause or announce an intermission after each hour of Zooming.

Seek coaching on how to perform on Zoom.

Theater artists could help Zoom speakers rehearse gesturing effectively with the whole body while talking and modulating the use of voice and facial expressions. A prime example is the first Zoom play, the Public Theatre’s production of “What Do We Need to Talk About?” Created on Zoom and about Zooming it premiered in April and can be viewed free through June.

Twitter and other technology companies already have announced that most employees can continue to work from virtual platforms even after the pandemic eases. With so many in the theater world now unemployed by the pandemic — directors, actors, choreographers, makeup artists, costumers and set designers — there is promise in the theater world sharing its wisdom with its virtual upstart. Not only could this improve our stamina, engagement and productivity online, it might also add some much-needed joy.

Janice Ross is a professor in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Stanford University.