What Video Calls Do to a Speaking Voice That a Room Doesn’t
By Mira Lindqvist · Voice & Pace
In 2021, Stanford communication researcher Jeremy Bailenson published a paper that tried to explain something millions of people had started calling "Zoom fatigue": the sense that a day of video calls is more draining than the same hours spent talking in a room.1 The paper, "Nonverbal Overload," proposed four specific causes, each built on earlier research. Two of them bear directly on how a speaker sounds, not just on how tired they feel.
The four proposed causes
Bailenson's four arguments were:
- Close, sustained eye contact. On a call, faces appear at a size that in a room would mean someone was standing very close, and they stay there for the whole meeting, with everyone apparently looking at you.
- Higher cognitive load. Sending and reading nonverbal cues over video takes more effort. You exaggerate a nod so it registers, and you work harder to read faces that are small, delayed or frozen.
- Seeing yourself. Most platforms show your own video throughout, which Bailenson compared to having a mirror held up to you all day.
- Reduced mobility. To stay in frame, people sit still in a small area for long stretches, in a way they would not in a meeting room or on a phone call.
A synthesis, then a measurement
The paper's status matters. Bailenson was explicit that his arguments were drawn from existing theory and research but had not yet been directly tested on video calls. That is a legitimate kind of contribution, but it is a different kind of evidence from an experiment, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than presenting it as settled.
Some of the testing has since been done. Bailenson and colleagues, led by Géraldine Fauville, developed the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale, validated with thousands of respondents.2 It separates fatigue into five kinds: general, social, emotional, visual and motivational. People whose meetings were more frequent, longer and more tightly bunched together reported more fatigue.
A field experiment by Kristen Shockley and colleagues went further.3 Over four weeks, employees were assigned to keep their cameras on or off in virtual meetings, and reported their fatigue daily. Days with the camera on were more fatiguing, and the effect was stronger for women and for newer members of the organization. Fatigue in turn was linked to people speaking up less and being less engaged in their meetings.
That last finding is the one a speaker should notice. A tiring medium does not only make you feel worse afterwards. It changes how much you contribute while you are in it.
Why the self-view matters for a speaker
Watching your own face while you talk pulls attention inward. It invites exactly the self-monitoring that already troubles nervous speakers, who tend to overestimate how visible their discomfort is. The research behind that bias is in the spotlight effect. A room never gives you a live picture of your own face. A call does, for the entire time you are speaking.
The likely consequence is attention split between your listeners and your own image, which leaves less for the argument you are making.
Why reduced mobility matters for the voice
Gesture is tied to how speech gets produced. Speakers who are prevented from gesturing become less fluent on spatial content, and gesturing appears to lighten the mental load of explaining. That research is covered in gesture is not decoration.
A tightly framed, seated position removes much of that movement. This offers a plausible explanation for something many speakers notice without being able to name: the person who is animated and well paced in a room sounds flatter on a call. This is an inference from separate findings, not something a study has measured directly. But it fits, and it suggests that the flatness is not a lack of effort. A channel that normally supports pacing and emphasis has been physically constrained.
The flatness has a cost of its own, covered in what a monotone voice costs an audience.
What to do
Hide self-view while you speak. Most platforms let you hide your own video from yourself while others still see you. This removes the mirror without changing anything for your audience.
Give yourself room to move. Sit back far enough that your hands and upper body are in frame, and use them. Standing for a presentation, if your setup allows it, gives your breath and your gestures more space.
Look at the lens when you make a point. The geometry of the camera changes what eye contact means on a call. That is covered in eye contact is for the room, not the camera.
Turn the camera off when it isn't needed. The field experiment suggests camera time itself is tiring. For long internal meetings where nobody needs to see you, an audio-only stretch is a reasonable choice, where your workplace allows it.
Leave gaps between calls. Meetings bunched tightly together were associated with more fatigue. Even five minutes away from the screen helps you arrive at the next call with more voice left.
Warm up as you would for a room. A minute of speaking out loud before an important call, at the volume and energy you want to use, brings back some of the range a still, seated position takes away.
References
- Bailenson, J. N. (2021). Nonverbal overload: a theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue. Technology, Mind, and Behavior, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000030
- Fauville, G., Luo, M., Queiroz, A., Bailenson, J., & Hancock, J. (2021). Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue Scale. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 4, 100119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100119
- Shockley, K. M., Gabriel, A. S., Robertson, D., Rosen, C. C., Chawla, N., Ganster, M. L., & Ezerins, M. E. (2021). The fatiguing effects of camera use in virtual meetings: A within-person field experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(8), 1137–1155. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000948
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