If you re feeling overly tired at the end of each day despite only traveling from your bedroom to your couch and back again, scientists want you to know this feeling is real, and that it s all technology s fault.
Professor Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, recently published a new study in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior examining the psychological consequences of spending hours on end on platforms like Zoom. And it turns out, spending so much time on our screens isn t great in four distinct ways. Excessive amounts of close-up eye contact is highly intense.
There appear to be four main causes:
Lots of eye contact at close range can cause anxiety or trigger a fight response.
Staring at your own face can make you highly critical of yourself.
Being trapped in one spot can make a person restless.
You can t see a person s body language, so it takes more energy to communicate. It s a wonderful tool when used properly and sparingly, but ya know, doing it 9 hours a day is not the same as going on a hike with your friends or being at a rock show and just being around people, said Stanford Virtual Communication Lab s Founding Director Jeremy Bailenson.