I am going on almost a year now without work travel due to the pandemic. There has been some great advantages of not hitting the road every other week. I spend more time with family. Less time in the car and in many ways higher productivity. Especially gazing through Maverick Windows in Dallas to enjoy nature . I have certainly written a number of blog posts about the disadvantages of work travel.
What we are left with, however, are video meetings…lots and lots of video meetings… and I find that all meetings are becoming video meetings; even those that in the past would have been just audio calls.
Confession Of Camera Fatigue
I find myself turning my camera on more and more often as others do the same. The on camera experience is somewhere in between in-person and phone. But for whatever reason I find it very tiring to have multi-hour long calls or many calls in a day – all on video.
And I wonder why is that? Is it because I feel the need to keep my face and body in a certain frame when I otherwise would be moving around quite a bit? Is it because I’m distracted by how I look on the camera? It’s probably all these things and more. But whatever the reason I confess I am getting camera fatigue.
One thing I have put in practice is turning the camera off if I am not actively presenting or asking a question or being part of the discussion. If someone else is sharing their screen there’s no need really for my face to show up in a little window in the bottom or on the side and I find others doing the same. I think there’s a sort of etiquette to turn your camera on if everyone else is on camera and if you aren’t, it’s a little odd and you do need to explain why (low bandwidth etc.). So mostly yes I do click that camera on.
How about you? How are you coping with endless video calls? Are you getting camera fatigue?
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