How to deal with Zoom calls in 2025: in smaller groups with static backgrounds
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Researchers are looking at how to make video meetings feel less tiring, reduce anxiety and tackle ‘Zoom dysmorphia’. Whether it’s a social catch-up with colleagues, or assembling to set new year objectives, many of us will be reconnecting via Zoom, Teams or Google Meet come Monday morning. Yet while such platforms have revolutionised flexible and remote working in recent years, scientists are increasingly waking up to the negative toll they can take on people’s energy levels and self-esteem. So how can we forge a healthier relationship with videoconferencing in 2025?.
Relatively early during the pandemic, psychologists coined the phrase “Zoom fatigue” to describe the physical and psychological exhaustion that can come from spending extended periods on videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom. It was found that people who have more and longer meetings using the technology, or have more negative attitudes towards them, tend to feel more exhausted by them.
Further studies have linked the use of the self view function, which allows you to control whether your video is displayed on your screen during a meeting, to greater levels of fatigue. “We also found this gender effect, with women reporting more Zoom fatigue than men,” says Dr Anna Carolina Queiroz, an associate professor of interactive media at the University of Miami in Florida, who has been involved in these studies.
One insight from her research is that people tend to feel more connected to others when video calls are frequent, brief and conducted with small groups, rather than long meetings with many participants, possibly because maintaining non-verbal communication cues, such as eye contact, with many people takes a lot of mental effort.
