Zoom-fatigued

I have bad news for students studying in schools that will still adopt the remote learning set-up this coming semester. You are being short-changed. Having taught part-time in the remote set-up for the last two years under this pandemic, I can say that it’s not working.

Well, the last two years was an emergency, so it’s reasonable why we had to resort to remote learning. But by this time, we should already have learned how to live with the virus that causes COVID-19.

Synchronous class lectures and discussions using the popular videoconferencing platforms Zoom and Google Meets are exhausting. As early as 2021, researchers have already confirmed that Zoom fatigue is real. Social anxiety is one of the causes of the extreme tiredness we feel after a lengthy videoconference session in a group setting. While our camera is open, it feels like everyone is looking at us, and that’s a subconsciously stressful experience.

According to Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, seeing ourselves during video chats constantly is exhausting. It gets worse when we have to sit within camera lens view on a videoconference session for an hour or more for each subject of let’s say three to four subjects a day.

Also, in regular face-to-face interactions, we’re able to easily take and interpret body language or nonverbal cues. But in video chats, Bailenson said, we have to work harder to send and receive signals. There is also that anxious feeling in videoconference communication that our physical movements might be misinterpreted.

Over a week ago, some major universities in Cebu City sought the mayor’s approval for the return of face-to-face classes this coming semester. Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama promptly responded last June 29 with an executive order permitting the full implementation of face-to-face classes. Minimum public health protocols must still be observed, like the wearing of face mask and observance of physical distancing, as well as proper ventilation of classrooms and other physical spaces.

Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio, who is concurrent Education secretary, also supports the implementation of full face-to-face classes in schools by August. Schools have at least a month to prepare for this. Actually, schools should have prepared a long time ago for the return of face-to-face classes.

There are valid questions, though, that must addressed. We’re still in a pandemic with an economic crisis to boot. What happens, for example, to those schools that lack enough space or facilities to implement the prescribed ventilation and distancing measures? What about the challenge of commuting in a time of skyrocketing gas prices and decreasing number of public transportation?

We can adjust, but the default should still be the face-to-face setting. For example, I propose hybrid classes wherein the subjects can be taught 75% face-to-face and 25% online. The proportion may vary depending on the resources of the stakeholders involved --the students, teachers, and schools – whose situation must be taken into consideration. In order to maintain flexibility in the event of a surge in COVID-19 cases, a greater portion of the learning activities may still be conducted face-to-face without eliminating online classes.

As the pandemic enters its endemic phase, we must start reclaiming the human element in our interactions and learning activities. The surge in digital technology during the pandemic must now be balanced with the physical and tactile ways by which we humans interact with each other.  Schools should try to bring us back together, to act like humans again; not the lost and fatigued kind of humans that we are now in a digitized world.