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Academic friends! Can I share something about zoom meetings? After zoom discussions or sessions, I have been feeling gripped by crazy anxiety for quite a while afterwards. Did I say something wrong? How was that received? Did I laugh too loudly?
Now, this is not that unusual, I am pretty anxious as a person, and also hyper-aware of others' perceptions (sadly). But zoom makes this really bad, and I have been trying to work out why.
I have two reasons, that I think contribute. One is for unscripted conversations (not lectures) in real life, I usually focus in on a one-to-one conversation. Down the pub/in a group discussion/with friends, I want to speak to one person.
I can't really do small-talk, I am uncomfortable grandstanding about something. Suddenly, with zoom you have 20+ people all listening to you. Some don't have their videos on, so there is not even any visual contact.
The second thing is, you get absolutely NO feedback from noises or body language. If I laugh loudly, and someone else does, that's cool, we are in it together. On zoom, I laugh, and that's it...awkward silence with myself. I have realised I am highly dependent on this.
The things I have learned to deal with human interaction and how to manage it and make it enjoyable are gone, and yet I am still revealing my ideas and my thoughts and my emotions to others.
So while one-on-one zooming is bearable, a group zoom is completely exhausting and leaves me hyper-anxious. I don't think there is much I can do about this apart from "learn to accept myself" blah blah blah. But goodness me, full online teaching is going to be really hard.
