Zoom fatigue

Zoom fatigue is the tiredness and exhaustion people link with video meetings, whatever the platform: Zoom, Teams, Webex or any other. Researchers also call it videoconference fatigue. The term spread during the 2020 lockdowns, when billions of people suddenly replaced face-to-face meetings with video calls (Riedl, 2022). It is a research concept, not a medical diagnosis.

To measure it, researchers developed the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale, which covers five kinds of tiredness: general, social, emotional, visual and motivational. In its validation study of 2,724 people, more frequent, longer and more bunched-together meetings went with more fatigue (Fauville et al., 2021).

What causes Zoom fatigue?

The best-known explanation is nonverbal overload. Jeremy Bailenson argued that the way video call software presents faces and nonverbal cues overloads people, and set out four ways the interface is likely to be draining. He was clear that these were arguments based on earlier research, still to be tested directly (Bailenson, 2021).

Later surveys found support. In an online sample of 9,787 people, those who used video calls more often, for longer and with fewer breaks reported more fatigue. So did people who felt mirror anxiety from seeing their own image, felt watched by many faces, felt physically trapped, or found producing and monitoring nonverbal cues an effort. Women reported more fatigue than men, explained by experiencing these mechanisms more (Fauville et al., 2023). In a separate panel of 613 adults, fatigue was 14.9% higher among women, linked with dissatisfaction with their own facial appearance on screen (Ratan et al., 2022).

These are mostly cross-sectional surveys of volunteers, so they show links rather than causes.

Is Zoom fatigue still real?

The picture has shifted. In 55 remote employees who rated their fatigue every hour for five workdays, muting the microphone and a stronger sense of belonging to the group were linked with less fatigue after meetings (Bennett et al., 2021). Turning the camera off is often suggested, but two preregistered studies found camera use unrelated to Zoom fatigue (Masjutin et al., 2024).

When researchers repeated a pandemic-era study in 2024, with 125 people and 945 meetings, video meetings were no longer linked with exhaustion overall. Meetings shorter than 44 minutes were less tiring than longer ones, and more boring meetings slightly more tiring (Nesher Shoshan & Wehrt, 2025). A review of coping strategies found that, of 37 papers suggesting them by 2022, only one had tested whether any of them actually reduces fatigue (Bauer & Riedl, 2023).

Why it matters for your neck and back

The “physically trapped” part is the one most relevant to the body. Staying in frame keeps you still, and a day of back-to-back calls can add up to hours of unbroken sedentary behaviour. The Health and Safety Executive’s guidance for screen work applies to calls too: short, frequent breaks are better than longer, occasional ones, and breaks should let you get up and move about, or at least change posture (HSE).

Leaving a few minutes between calls is the simplest way to build that in. Microbreaks explains how often to move, the desk break timer can remind you, and What are exercise snacks? covers very short bursts of activity. If most of your calls happen at home, home office setup covers the screen and chair.