This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.

I am sitting in a darkened room, listening to upbeat music of the type often used at tech conferences to make attendees feel they are part of something big, waiting in eager anticipation for a keynote speaker to appear.

Bang on time, virtual communication expert Jeremy Bailenson arrives on the digital stage. He is here at the American Psychological Association’s November 2020 meeting, via a videoconferencing app, to somewhat ironically talk about Zoom fatigue and ways to battle it. “In late March, like all of us, I was sheltered in place,” Bailenson tells his invisible tele-audience. “After a week long of being on video calls for eight or nine hours a day, I was just exhausted.”

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