Zoom Fatigue
Etymology
Named for Zoom, the videoconferencing platform that dominated the 2020 pandemic shift to remote work, though it applies to any such tool. The Stanford researcher Jeremy Bailenson gave it academic grounding in 2021, identifying causes like the stress of seeing your own face and reduced mobility. It is an eponym in the making — a brand name absorbing a whole category.
noun phrase · /ZOOM fuh-TEEG/
The distinctive exhaustion that comes from prolonged video calls, over and above the tiredness of ordinary meetings.
What it names
A handle for a genuinely new form of depletion — the cognitive load of constant self-view, delayed audio, and unbroken eye contact that in-person conversation never demanded.
Example
By the fourth video call before lunch, the Zoom fatigue was so heavy she could barely follow the agenda.
Related idea
It is a species of cognitive load: the medium itself imposes extra mental work, on top of whatever the meeting is actually about.