“When you're on a video conference, you know everybody's looking at you you are on stage, so there comes the social pressure and feeling like you need to perform. Coronavirus isolation is creating new couplesĪn added factor, says Shuffler, is that if we are physically on camera, we are very aware of being watched.Why grocery shelves won't be empty for long.One 2014 study by German academics showed that delays on phone or conferencing systems shaped our views of people negatively: even delays of 1.2 seconds made people perceive the responder as less friendly or focused. However, when it happens in a video call, you became anxious about the technology.” It also makes people uncomfortable. “Silence creates a natural rhythm in a real-life conversation. You cannot relax into the conversation naturally,” he says. That dissonance, which causes people to have conflicting feelings, is exhausting. “Our minds are together when our bodies feel we're not. Video chats mean we need to work harder to process non-verbal cues like facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, and body language paying more attention to these consumes a lot of energy. Is video chat harder? What’s different compared to face-to-face communication?īeing on a video call requires more focus than a face-to-face chat, says Petriglieri.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we’re on video calls more than ever before – and many are finding it exhausting.īut what, exactly, is tiring us out? BBC Worklife spoke to Gianpiero Petriglieri, an associate professor at Insead, who explores sustainable learning and development in the workplace, and Marissa Shuffler, an associate professor at Clemson University, who studies workplace wellbeing and teamwork effectiveness, to hear their views. There are the work huddles, the one-on-one meetings and then, once you’re done for the day, the hangouts with friends and family.

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