Many of us are spending hours a day on Zoom. While Zoom has been a great tool at a time when we can’t meet in person, most of us are experiencing at least some level of Zoom fatigue.
There are many reasons for this and a lot has been written on the subject (e.g. while Zoom is a visual medium, it is much harder to read body language on a screen; looking at a screen is hard on the eyes; having conversations on your computer can be distracting as alerts pop up in front of you; if you are with a group, you can’t keep multiple people in your peripheral vision while you focus on the person who is speaking; if you want the other person to think you are making eye contact, you have to look at your camera and not into their eyes).
One thing that is very distracting about Zoom is that most of us can see our own image on our screen. While this can initially provide us with useful information about what the other person is seeing (Are we properly lit? Is our face large enough on the screen? Have we minimized the distractions in the background? Are we having a bad hair day?), it also creates an element of stress that doesn’t exist in the “real world”.
As it turns out, Zoom has a feature that we should all be using. It is called “Hide Myself”. To choose that option, simply right click on your video and you’ll get a pull down menu. It is a simple “hack” but it works wonders if you are getting tired of looking at yourself (and you’ve already removed the food landed on your shirt collar!)
