If you’re worried about “Zoom fatigue,” join the crowd. Just not on Zoom.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “before the pandemic, Zoom was barely known to the public. The nine-year-old company served mainly businesses, hosting lots of webinars and training.” However, in the midst of the pandemic, it has grown from ten million people attending online meetings at the end of last year to three hundred million in April.
These video conferences come at a cost, however.
When we talk to people in this way, it is difficult for us to read their body language or experience nonverbal or real-time feedback. Seeing ourselves on camera brings stress, as does the close proximity of faces on screen. (A Stanford study found that close facial images activate our innate fight-or-flight reactions.) And we are missing the positive biochemical reactions we experience in face-to-face relationships.
How do we combat Zoom fatigue? Harvard Business Review suggests that we avoid multitasking on video calls, build in breaks, reduce online stimuli such as busy backgrounds, and use phone calls or email rather than defaulting to video.
Choose meat over milk
Too many believers settle for secondhand encounters with our Lord. Like Zoom teleconferences, we meet Jesus through filters that can minimize his immediacy.
We listen to sermons, attend Bible studies, and consume media content such as this Daily Article. Such resources can be helpful, but they can also become an end rather than a means. Their larger purpose is to lead us to Jesus himself. Otherwise, like the Corinthians, we are settling for milk (digested food) rather than meat (1 Corinthians 3:1–2).
That’s why I’ve been writing this week on ways we can experience the living Lord Jesus in a more personal and transforming way. We’ve explored the importance of seeking an intimate relationship with our Savior by making time to hear his voice. Yesterday, we…
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