Mar 19, 2025 12:30:00

Research shows that people who are dissatisfied with their appearance are more likely to experience 'Zoom fatigue' during video conferences

In recent years, video conferencing using Zoom and Microsoft Teams has become common, but some people experience a feeling of fatigue specific to video conferencing called '

Zoom fatigue ' and want to avoid video conferencing as much as possible. A new paper published by a US research team suggests that 'evaluation of one's own face' may be related to Zoom fatigue.

Examining attitudes about the virtual workplace: Associations between zoom fatigue, impression management, and virtual meeting adoption intent | PLOS One
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312354

Zoom Fatigue: Scientists Say Your Face Might Be The Problem : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/zoom-fatigue-scientists-say-your-face-might-be-the-problem

While many workers prefer working remotely to going into the office, many have negative perceptions of videoconferencing, which can lead to Zoom fatigue. Past studies have shown that women and people of color are more likely to experience Zoom fatigue, but it can affect all workers.

Video conferencing is beneficial for many industries and workers, but the problem of Zoom fatigue is one of the reasons why workers are hesitant to adopt video conferencing. Therefore, a research team led by Chaeyun Lim, a doctoral student at the School of Media and Information at Michigan State University in the United States, investigated whether Zoom fatigue is related to 'evaluation of one's own face'.

A 2018 study showed that long screen times, social media engagement, and photo editing before posting are associated with dissatisfaction with one's appearance. In video conferencing, not only can you see the other person's face, but you also see your own face in the corner of the screen, which can lead to negative evaluations of your own face and ultimately cause Zoom fatigue.

The research team surveyed 2,448 US workers in a variety of professional, technical, and scientific fields, who worked remotely at least some of the time and regularly participated in videoconferencing for work.

The survey asked participants questions such as 'Are you dissatisfied with the way you look?', 'To what extent do you experience Zoom fatigue?', and 'If your video conferencing tool had a feature that allowed you to adjust your face or use an avatar, to what extent would you use it?'

The research team used

structural equation modeling to analyze the association between each factor and found that subjects who were more dissatisfied with their own face also had higher levels of Zoom fatigue. These subjects were also more likely to adjust their face or use an avatar during video conferences.

In addition, Zoom fatigue caused by facial dissatisfaction was also associated with negative perceptions of video conferencing itself, such as thinking that 'video conferencing is useless.' This may lead to a decrease in the use of video conferencing at work, which may ultimately contribute to technology inequality in the workplace.

Of course, the subjects may have been dissatisfied with their faces before they developed Zoom fatigue, but it has also been pointed out that the increased use of video conferencing tools may have led to more opportunities to stare at one's own face, which may have led to dissatisfaction with the face.

'Increased time spent on video conferencing may exacerbate negative perceptions of self-image and concerns about critical evaluations from others,' the researchers wrote in their paper.