New research shows how employers and tech companies can maintain the positive aspects of remote work while reducing the psychological drain, particularly for women.

新的研究表明，雇主和科技公司可以保持员工在远程工作时保持积极心态的同时减少心理疲劳，尤其是对女性而言。

BY THERESA MACHEMER

作者：特蕾莎.麦克赫默
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Video conferencing tools have become the default platforms for socially distanced human interaction, especially for many people who once worked in offices. Some companies are now making commitments to offer remote work as an option even after the pandemic ends. But after more than a year of living and working online, society is grappling with the unique exhaustion, nicknamed “Zoom fatigue,” that follows a long day of video conferencing.

视频会议工具已经成为社交距离较远的人际互动的默认平台，对许多曾经在办公室工作的人来说尤其如此。一些公司现在承诺即使在疫情结束后也会将远程工作作为员工的一种选择。但是，在网上生活和工作了一年多之后，社会正在与一种独特的疲惫作斗争，这种疲惫被称为“Zoom疲劳”，这是一种在漫长的一天的视频会议之后出现的疲惫感。

New research published today offers some of the first data-backed conclusions about Zoom fatigue and provides a broad look at the causes. It also shows that the weight of Zoom fatigue is not equally distributed. In a survey of more than 10,000 people, described online today on the research-sharing platform known as SSRN, women reported experiencing about 13.8 percent more Zoom fatigue than men, on average.

最近发表的一项新研究提供了一些关于Zoom疲劳的首批有数据支持的结论，并对其原因进行了广泛研究。研究还表明，Zoom疲劳的分量不是均匀分布的。今天公布在研究分享平台SSRN上的报告涵盖了一项超过1万人参与的调查研究，调查显示，女性报告的Zoom疲劳平均比男性多13.8%。

First author Géraldine Fauville, an expert in virtual reality and communication at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, says that one role of science is to help identify these kinds of inequities, “and then, based on the science, society and companies can use that knowledge to address these issues.”

第一作者Géraldine Fauville是瑞典哥德堡大学(University of Gothenburg)的虚拟现实与通信专家，她说，科学的一个作用就是帮助识别这种不平等，“然后，基于科学原理，社会和公司可以利用这些知识来解决这些问题。”

For instance, her team’s work shows that long days full of calls with few breaks can cause Zoom fatigue. The self-view video, the crowd of faces on the screen, the expectation to stay in view of the camera, and the lack of nonverbal cues all tax the brain, as well. Now, by knowing what’s triggering the problem, there are steps both managers and technology creators can take to ease the burden.

例如，她的团队的工作表明，电话接连不断而很少休息的长时间工作会导致Zoom疲劳。视频会议里自己的面孔、屏幕上的众多面孔、对保持在摄像机视野内的期待，以及非语言线索的缺乏等因素都会让大脑感到负担沉重。现在，通过了解问题的诱因，管理者和技术创造者都可以采取措施来减轻这些负担。

A year of adaptation

适应的一年

There’s no doubt that remote working has its perks: no commutes, flexibility to handle household tasks, and easy access to conferences for all workers, including those with disabilities. Teleworking has also made critical pandemic-related work possible. In San Francisco, Andrea Nickerson trains COVID-19 case investigators—the people who conduct contact tracing—through weekly classes on Zoom.

毫无疑问，远程办公有它的好处:不用通勤，可以灵活地处理家务，所有员工都能方便地参加会议，甚至包括那些有残疾的人。远程工作也使与新冠肺炎有关的重大工作成为可能。在旧金山，安德里亚·尼克森(Andrea Nickerson)就可以通过远程会议对COVID-19病例调查人员进行培训，这些人通过每周的Zoom课程跟踪病毒接触者。
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On a busy day, she might spend five or six hours in video conferences. It’s rare for her to have none at all. “At the end of the day, the thing that I want to do most is just close my computer and tuck it into a place where I don't even have to look at my computer,” says Nickerson.

在繁忙的时候，她可能会花5到6个小时在视频会议上。对她来说，一天中没有视频会议基本是很少见的。“在一天结束的时候，我最想做的事情就是关掉我的电脑，把它放在一个我甚至不用看电脑的地方，” Nickerson说道。

When people began having widespread conversations about Zoom fatigue, the scientists who specialize in the interactions between humans with technology began to study the phenomenon in earnest.

当人们开始广泛讨论Zoom疲劳时，专门研究人类与科技互动的科学家们开始认真研究起这一现象来。

First, they created a tool to measure fatigue, which they named the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale, or ZEF. Then they created a public survey and gathered over 10,000 responses that measured peoples’ fatigue on the ZEF scale, alongside statistics about how long each person spends on Zoom and demographic information.

首先，他们发明了一种测量疲劳程度的工具，他们将其命名为Zoom疲惫和疲劳量表(ZEF)。然后，他们发起了一项公众调查，收集了1万多个反馈并利用衡量人们的疲劳程度的ZEF量表来衡量这些数据，这些数据还包括每个人花在Zoom上的时间和人口统计信息。

The data confirmed what many may have already suspected: Spending more time on video calls, with less transition time between each call, will cause more Zoom fatigue. The results also identified four factors that teleworkers have to contend with when using video conferencing.

这一数据证实了许多人可能一直存疑的一点，即在视频通话上花费越多时间，且每一次通话之间间隔的时间越少，越容易导致更大的Zoom疲劳。研究结果还发现了了远程办公人员在使用视频会议时必须应对的四个挑战。

First, the lack of nonverbal cues is stressful because people cannot naturally convey or interpret gestures and body language when just their colleagues’ shoulders and heads are visible. People might overcompensate by exaggerating their own gestures, like raising a dramatic thumbs-up, while they simultaneously struggle to understand their colleagues’ moods.

首先，缺乏非语言（身体语言）暗示会让人感到紧张，因为当只有同事的肩膀和头可见的时候，人们是无法自然地传达或解释他们的手势和肢体语言的。所以在视频会议中，人们可能会夸大自己的手势，比如夸张地竖起大拇指，同时还需要努力理解同事的情绪。

During video calls, people report feeling trapped in one spot so they can stay within view of the webcam, increasing stress levels.

在视频通话中，被调查者说他们感觉自己被钉在了一个地方，因为只有这样他们才可以在网络摄像头的视野内，这实际上增加了与会者的压力水平。

Many video conferencing tools default to showing users their own video window, and the researchers found that this constant, real-time reflection can cause what’s known as mirror anxiety. This condition is a stressful self-consciousness that causes distractions and that has been lixed to increased anxiety and depression.

许多视频会议工具默认向用户显示自己的视频窗口，但是研究人员发现，这种持续的、实时的反射会导致所谓的“镜像焦虑”。这种情况是一种紧张的自我意识，它会导致人们分心，并且这种紧张情绪还可能导致焦虑和抑郁。
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Finally, the paper describes “hypergaze,” an intense feeling that the other people on the call are staring at you, because the video conferencing display shows everyone looking toward their cameras no matter who their focus is actually on. It’s even worse in one-on-one meetings, when your colleague’s face appears so large on the screen, it’s as if they are standing less than two feet away.

最后，这篇论文描述了“hypergaze”，这个词描述的是一种强烈的感觉。由于视频会议时显示屏显示每个人都在看着自己的摄像头，即使他们的焦点实际上不是在盯着你，但是你就是会感觉其他人都在盯着你。在一对一的视频会议中，情况就更糟了，因为一对一视频会议中，你的同事的脸在屏幕上会显得很大，这看起来好像他们就站在不到两英尺远的地方似的。

“This kind of physical proximity that is mimicked by video conference is perceived by the brain as a situation that would lead either to mating or to conflict,” says Fauville. “This is very intense for the brain.”

Fauville解释道:“视频会议所模拟的这种身体上的接近，被大脑错认为是一种可能导致交配或冲突的情况。这种感觉对大脑来说是非常强烈的。”
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Differences and discrepancies

区别和差异
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According to the survey, women spent more time per day in meetings, with shorter breaks between them, than men. They also reported greater levels of mirror anxiety and felt more trapped by their video calls—the two strongest predictors of high Zoom fatigue.

调查显示，与男性相比，女性每天花在会议上的时间更多，而会议之间的休息时间更短。他们还报告了更严重的镜子焦虑，更容易被视频电话困住——这两种最强的预测高变焦疲劳的因素。

“Previous researchers have shown that [mirror anxiety] seems to apply more to women than men. So that's also one of the reasons why we decided to look at gender,” says Fauville. But as for why women feel more trapped in place during calls, she says, “we don't know. And it’s kind of the next step, understanding the roots of these mechanisms.”

“以前的研究表明，(镜像焦虑)似乎更适用于女性而不是男性。这也是我们决定研究性别的原因之一。”福维尔说。但至于为什么女性在打电话时感觉更困在原地，她说，“我们不知道。这是下一步，了解这些机制的根源。”

The survey also showed that people of color tended to report higher Zoom fatigue than white people, although the effect is much smaller than the difference accounted for by gender.

该调查还显示，有色人种比白人更容易出现变焦疲劳，尽管其影响远小于性别差异。

The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it is “excellent methodologically … It's based on very sound theory,” says Rabindra Ratan, an expert in human-technology interaction at Michigan State University who was not involved with the study.

这篇论文尚未经过同行评审，但它“在方法论上非常优秀……基于非常可靠的理论，”密歇根州立大学(Michigan State University)人机交互专家拉宾德拉·拉丹(Rabindra Ratan)说。拉宾德拉没有参与这项研究。

Many questions remain about the psychological impacts of teleworking and connecting with others through video conferences. So far, there is little data-backed research about how people with disabilities have been impacted by the broad uptake of teleworking, for example. But because the ZEF scale is freely available for other scientists to use, and work is underway to translate it into more languages, Fauville hopes that researchers will be able to apply it to their own future research.

关于远程工作和通过视频会议与他人联系的心理影响，仍然存在许多问题。例如，到目前为止，关于远程办公对残疾人的影响的数据支持研究很少。但是，由于ZEF量表可以免费提供给其他科学家使用，并且正在将其翻译成更多的语言，福维尔希望研究人员能够将其应用到他们自己未来的研究中。

Flexibility and connection

灵活性和连接

Anecdotally, at least, there do seem to be benefits from using this kind of technology to work from home.

至少，使用这种技术在家工作似乎确实有好处。

Ratan moved to California during the pandemic because he could conduct research and classes virtually. Both he and Fauville have also found that during the pandemic, it has been easier to collaborate with international colleagues, because people no longer feel awkward starting long-distance conversations.

Ratan在大流行期间搬到加州，因为他可以进行研究和虚拟课程。他和福维尔还发现，在流感大流行期间，与国际同事合作变得更加容易，因为人们不再觉得开始远距离对话很尴尬。

For many, the benefits of remote work go beyond newfound convenience. The destigmatization of remote work meant that Zahra Khan, a systems engineer in Southern California, could find a remote job that allows her to manage the symptoms of her disability, which affects her hearing and energy levels. Khan uses video calls for about three or four hours a day on Google Hangouts, which offers auto-captioning. She also has the flexibility to take medication or rest as necessary.

对许多人来说，远程工作的好处不仅仅是新发现的便利。远程工作的消弭意味着南加州的系统工程师Zahra Khan可以找到一份远程工作，让她能够控制自己残疾的症状，这些症状影响了她的听力和精力水平。Khan每天在谷歌Hangouts上使用大约三四个小时的视频通话，该网站提供自动字幕功能。她也可以根据需要灵活地服用药物或休息。

“It has been much better in terms of managing my energy levels and managing my health symptoms, and even keeping hydrated,” says Khan. “And it's something that I wanted at my last job, but it wasn't available.”

“在管理我的能量水平和控制我的健康症状方面，甚至在保持水分方面，已经好多了，”可汗说。“这是我在上一份工作中想要得到的东西，但我找不到。”

The speed with which employers figured out how to host remote workspaces last spring prompted the creation of the “DisabledAndSaltyAF” hashtag on Twitter. People with disabilities used the hashtag to share stories of times that employers pushed them out of workplaces by refusing to provide remote work as an accessible accommodation. The shift to remote work during the pandemic seems like proof that those accommodations could have been provided all along.

去年春天，雇主们迅速想出了如何远程办公的方法，促使他们在Twitter上创建了“DisabledAndSaltyAF”(DisabledAndSaltyAF)标签。残障人士用这个标签分享他们的故事，雇主曾多次拒绝为他们提供远程工作作为便利条件，将他们赶出工作场所。大流行期间转向远程工作似乎证明，这些设施本来可以一直提供。

Now, people are worried about what might happen when restrictions lift and people without disabilities feel comfortable going out in person again.

现在，人们担心的是，当限制解除后，没有残疾的人又可以自在地出门了。

“As soon as things start to go ‘back to normal’ a lot of this might go away,” says Khan. “And that is very scary.”

“一旦事情开始‘回归正常’，很多问题就会消失，”Khan说。“这非常可怕。”

Solutions for the future

未来的解决方案

Moving forward, employers may take a hybrid approach when it is safe to return to in-person work. Office culture could become more accommodating, allowing some people to physically attend meetings while others join by video or phone. And the new findings point toward solutions that both workers and managers can use to prevent Zoom fatigue.

今后，雇主可能会采取一种混合的方式，当回到现场工作是安全的。办公室文化可能会变得更加包容，允许一些人亲自参加会议，而另一些人通过视频或电话参加会议。这项新发现为员工和管理者提供了预防缩放疲劳的解决方案。

Fauville has purchased a standing desk to reduce the feeling of being trapped by allowing more natural movement while attending video calls. To reduce eye strain, which is one measurable effect of Zoom fatigue on the ZEF scale, Nickerson uses an orange filter on her screen.

福维尔买了一张站立式办公桌，可以在视频通话时更自然地活动，以减少被困的感觉。为了减轻眼睛疲劳，这是ZEF缩放表上焦比疲劳的一个可衡量的影响，尼克森在她的屏幕上使用了一个橙色滤镜。

But Fauville emphasizes that “the responsibility of addressing Zoom fatigue should not be placed on individuals, since that could just intensify inequity.”

但福维尔强调，“解决极速疲劳的责任不应该落在个人身上，因为这只会加剧不平等。”

Instead, the researchers hope that employers will use the results to create standard policies that protect everyone from Zoom fatigue. They could require one day per week to be video call-free, require 10-minute buffers between meetings, or carefully consider what tool to use for a meeting. Sometimes, video conferencing is the best tool because it offers auto-captioning, screen sharing, or a social presence. But often, a phone call, text, or email will suffice.

相反，研究人员希望雇主能利用研究结果制定标准政策，保护每个人免受缩放疲劳。他们可能要求每周有一天不进行视频通话，会议之间需要10分钟的缓冲时间，或者仔细考虑会议应该使用什么工具。有时候，视频会议是最好的工具，因为它提供了自动字幕、屏幕共享或社交表现。但通常，一个电话、短信或电子邮件就足够了。

Video conferencing companies can also change their tools to reduce Zoom fatigue.

视频会议公司也可以改变他们的工具，以减少变焦疲劳。

“The easiest fix is to make it so the self-mode is not so prominent,” says Jeremy Bailenson, a lead author on the SSRN study and the founding director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. He suggests that, by default, the self-view should disappear after a few seconds to reduce mirror anxiety.

“最简单的解决办法是让自我模式不那么突出，”杰里米·拜伦森说，他是SSRN研究的主要作者，也是斯坦福大学虚拟人类互动实验室的创始主任。他建议，默认情况下，这种自我感觉应该在几秒钟后消失，以减少对镜子的焦虑。
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Bailenson adds that video conferencing companies could also address hypergaze by calculating the perceived distance between the user and their video-calling partner, then limit the maximum display size of heads on the screen.

Bailenson补充说，视频会议公司也可以通过计算用户和他们的视频通话伙伴之间的感知距离来解决hypergaze问题，然后限制头部在屏幕上的最大显示尺寸。

Zoom fatigue could continue to plague remote workers, especially women and people of color, depending on the choices that companies make to prevent it, says Ratan. But he adds that people seem more accepting of telework than ever before.

Ratan表示，焦距疲劳可能会继续困扰远程工作者，尤其是女性和有色人种，这取决于公司为防止这种情况所做的选择。但他补充说，人们似乎比以往任何时候都更能接受远程办公。

“We've been pushed forward 10 years, maybe, in terms of progress toward using some of these remote work and education and healthcare technologies in general. So I think society is ready for this.”

“就远程工作、教育和医疗技术的总体应用而言，我们已经向前推进了10年。所以我认为社会已经为此做好了准备。”