Video calling was cool during coronavirus early days. Now comes ‘Zoom fatigue’

Despite the promise of virtual human connectedness, all the constant Zoom requests ended up exhausting people rather than reinvigorating them. — Reuters

What they offered was a paradox. Stay at home, officials said, but stay connected. Not everything had to stop, not if we got creative. We could all be #AloneTogether.

So we did – in earnest. We held meetings online; physical bodies became a grid of digital faces. After work, we made our own drinks, found some nice light, opened our computers and went to happy hour, just like we used to. (Though not at all like we used to.) We sang "Happy Birthday" to friends from afar, watched them blow out their candle. We cleared space in our bedrooms and danced to DJ sets like nobody was watching because nobody was watching. There were online games and a long list of apps for online hangouts – Zoom, FaceTime, Twitch, Houseparty and on and on.