Zoom Fatigue
The exhaustion and burnout caused by spending long periods on video calls, first widely reported during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Explanation
Zoom fatigue describes the mental tiredness people experience after back-to-back video meetings, a phenomenon that became widespread once remote work pushed millions of people into videoconferencing during 2020. Stanford Communication Professor Jeremy Bailenson, director of the university's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, published a February 2021 article in Technology, Mind, and Behavior arguing for four likely causes, which he framed as arguments rather than settled findings: forced close-up eye contact, the cognitive effort of exaggerating nonverbal cues like nodding, the unnatural experience of seeing your own face on screen, and reduced physical mobility during calls. The term mattered enough to shape a lasting shift toward shorter meetings, asynchronous updates, and camera-optional culture inside organizations, all of which affect how marketers and internal communicators design internal and customer-facing video content.
Usage context / examples
A company reduces its default meeting length from 60 to 30 minutes and encourages camera-off options for large calls specifically to reduce Zoom fatigue among remote staff.
Related terms
Remote work, hybrid work, video conferencing, digital burnout
Turkish definition
Zoom fatigue, özellikle COVID-19 döneminde yaygınlaşan, uzun süreli görüntülü görüşmelerin yol açtığı zihinsel yorgunluk ve tükenmişliktir.