Women experience higher levels of "Zoom fatigue" than men, study finds

After years of selling homes in Connecticut, Jackie says she's experiencing a level of burnout and fatigue like never before. She believes the culprit is something new in her professional life: hours of Zoom meetings.

"At the end of the workday, whenever that is, I have absolutely nothing left to give," said Jackie, who asked her last name not be used. "My face and eyes hurt. I'm making up fake excuses not to log on to meetings or meet clients." A recent study shows Jackie is far from alone. A paper published earlier this month by researchers at Stanford University is among the first to explore the phenomenon of "Zoom fatigue," the catchall phrase used to describe the exhaustion many workers say they experience after a day of back-to-back video conferences. Researchers found that women reported a "significantly higher" level of Zoom fatigue than men. Among the more than 10,000 study participants, about 14% of women self-reported feeling either very or extremely fatigued after video meetings compared to roughly 5.5% of men.