Consider that as audio quality gets worse and worse eventually becoming indecipherable (from latency, dropouts, distortion...), it takes increasing effort to understand what is being said. The curve is non-linear, but the direction of the correlation is clear.

There is no question that auditory fatigue is real. The question is only to what extent poor audio is a contributing factor to "Zoom Fatigue".

There are a bunch of articles about it. National Geographic [1], Harvard Business Review [2], BB [3]. One of the theories is that we have to work harder to pick up on non-verbal cues, which consumes energy.

A data point from the BBC article: "One 2014 study by German academics showed that delays on phone or conferencing systems shaped our views of people negatively: even delays of 1.2 seconds made people perceive the responder as less friendly or focused."

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/coronavir...

[2] https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-combat-zoom-fatigue

[3] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video...

Brief confusion and distraction is not the same as malaise.

Nobody claimed they were, you introduced those words.

Fair enough. But if "mental exhaustion" is not some serious impediment, then not sure this is worth talking about. Not seeing much evidence here.

I would agree.

My team is spread throughout the US and for a few years now my professional life was wall to wall Google Hangouts/Meet. It's been largely business as usual for us.

I wouldn't say there aren't other factors. General anxiety about ones health and paycheck, parents are now largely unpaid teachers, 24/7 news coverage of generally bad news.

It probably all adds up and we just blame it on technology. 5g towers, video games and now Zoom.