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Okay. I'm a big enough man to admit it: I have Zoom fatigue. Staring at a computer screen with the faces of people with whom I am supposed to be meeting with is causing me to wonder how much longer I can do this. Don't forget to mute yourself when you come into the meeting. Do you prefer gallery view?
Send me to a breakout room all by myself, thank you.
I have become enormously self-conscious about my own face as I know that I appear in a much larger format on my colleague's screens. Is it okay to itch my nose? Should I mute myself as simple courtesy since I tend to talk too much anyway? In a room full of eight to ten people, you could get away with checking out. Maybe not completely, but at least for those mind-wandering moments when the conversation has one wheel in the sand. Sticking a camera and a microphone in front of me seems to suggest that I have something important to add at any moment.
Yes, I know you can turn off your camera and mic and cruise by with just that placeholder initial or stock photo. I know that I am hard at work on any given day trying to get elementary schoolers to listen with their eyes, ears and heart, but all that staring at one another seems just a little excessive, doesn't it?
Speaking of smaller people, I have noticed that younger folks don't seem nearly as concerned with the leering eye of the camera. Some get shy, but for the most part, the lure of that screen is immense and all but unshakable. This is the generation that gets teleconferencing. Face Time. They think very little about taking a video of themselves doing jumping jacks in their front yard and sending them off to share with their classmates and teacher. When the pandemic first struck and we all headed for our holes, I suggested that I should get a Fortnite account so I could keep track of our kids. Not to worry. The ones who have access to any sort of social media have been happy to share their adventures. By any means necessary.
Even Zoom. Perhaps it's because it gives them the chance to connect with friends. Maybe it's because they aren't old enough to know any different. This is their reality, after all. And mine, for that matter. I just haven't become accustomed as yet. I look forward to a day when those kind of events retreat again to the background. But I know the truth: We have just proved how easy it is to carry on business, class and socializing via Al Gore's Internet.
Just not for me.
Not yet.