Zoom gloom

• A typical video call demands more intense focus on the words, as most other body language cues are missing. If somebody is really dependent on those non-verbal cues, it can be very draining not to have them.
• Multi-person screens magnify this exhausting problem, as it challenges the brain’s central vision, forcing it to decode too many people at once.

• If you view a single speaker at a time, you can’t recognize how non-active participants are behaving - something you otherwise would pick up with a peripheral vision.

• For some people, the prolonged split in attention can overwhelm the brain by unfamiliar excess stimuli while being hyper-focused on searching for non-verbal cues that it can’t find.

A traditional phone call may be less taxing on the brain because it delivers on a promise to convey only a voice.