Having spent the last week with 12+ hours per day on Zoom meetings, I think I have earned some expertise on this phenomenon to comment on it. The weirdest stuff goes down during Zoom meetings. And it is especially troublesome for people like me who don’t have a poker face . Let me rephrase it. It is catastrophic to not have a poker face during professional zoom meetings. I ended up switching off my video multiple times during these meetings, cackling away, nearly breathless, with tears in my eyes. Oh and I forget to turn off the mic. So, while they can’t see me snickering away, they definitely hear me make *insert some weird animal* noises. The only saving grace being they don’t see me turn red with all the uncontrollable laughter. Hopefully with all this description you can visualise a red hot mess of a person with weird noises in the background and wonder where all this water is coming from?!
Moreover, the constant use of earbuds has done the maximum damage. I can now not even hear my parents tell me not to use earphones all the time. I have already lost my hearing abilities. I am slowly turning into the monster I once feared. A person who is extremely loud all the time without reason. While on this topic, I have often said that I am aging at the same rate as my parents if not more. We’ll eventually have all the same problems. Gradually becoming hard of hearing, check. Unreasonable back aches, check. Inability to understand the next generation, double check.
Another beautiful effect these zoom calls have had on me is the confusion when a person speaks to me in real life and a yellow rectangular perimeter doesn’t begin to glow around that person. Several times it has left me dazzled till the time I have had the sudden realisation that I am not currently in a Zoom call. Also, my brain has forgotten the original meaning of the word. I swear someone asked me to zoom in a document and I had looked up confused, thinking how am I supposed to Zoom call a document. Thankfully, I realised before making a fool of myself and asking just that. Who am I kidding? Everyone knows I am a fool. Answer me this. When this lockdown is finally over, will I still be video-calling home from college or schedule zoom meetings?