Okay, sweet readers, I feel like we’ve gotten close enough over the last few weeks that I’m going to share a little secret. Y’all have to promise not to tell… OK?
Sigh. Ok. Here goes: I hate Zoom.
There. I said it.
And I do: I hate it. (If you have not yet jumped on the awful amusement-park-like Zoom train, Zoom is an app for laptops, tablets, and smartphones that lets users see and talk to others online in real time for meetings and get-togethers.)
Or, at least, I want to hate it. I know, as a self-proclaimed Jesus freak, I’m not supposed to hate anything. That’s not how JC teaches us to roll. Sigh. So maybe I’m exaggerating just the littlest of bits. Maybe I don’t hate Zoom. And maybe I only feel squinty-eyed skepticism – as well as the slightest bit of nausea – at the thought of the next Zoom meeting.
But whatever it is that I’m feeling about Zoom, I do know this: It’s intense. It’s not pleasant. And I’m more than a little bit over the entire thing.
I know all you optimistic types – the types who say that the glass is entirely full and overflowing, no matter what – will want to remind me of the blessings of Zoom. And I’ll save y’all the trouble: I totally get what Zoom provides: It gives us a way to stay connected during this weird time of minuscule peopling. It allows us to see each other and to have some sort of interaction with humans who do not live in our homes with us. It allows us to school, to work, and to function without sacrificing anyone's safety.
I get all that, but Zoom still makes me exceedingly twitchy and just plain tired. I suspect that I am not the only one. I imagine that there are others out there who are entirely over experiencing relationships in only two, less than satisfying, virtual dimensions – relationships that can be clicked into and then left without fanfare and relationships that we can “ghost” all too easily.
These are also the type of relationship that requires my face to be displayed on a screen for way too many hours a day. That’s just not right. None of us should consider our own reflections for that long. With so much face time, narcissistic personality disorders seem imminent for us all. Maybe we’re not crazy now, but, slowly, we’re all turning into Evil Queens with magic mirrors.
And, of course, there’s the reality of doing life in the opening screen of The Brady Bunch that's on a continual loop, and we’re all waiting on Alice to mute her barking dog or rolling our eyes at Bobby for over-talking. With the Hollywood Squares approach, there are just so stinkin’ many images hitting our hearts and our minds all at once. I’m not sure the human brain is made to keep up – like shopping at Ikea. It’s just overwhelming. And exhausting. And somehow dehumanizing.
And the truth is that we have no precedent for how this kind of long-term, social interaction will impact us. There are no benchmarks for how humans as a species will respond to relying entirely on the sorcery of the Internet, month after month, for basically all interpersonal connections. We have never been tested in this way before, and maybe there’s good reason for that.
(If you’d like to read more about our over-Zoomed world, check out this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-bad-looks-good/202004/are-zoom-meetings-tiring-you-out-heres-how-recover.)
So yeah, I hate Zoom. And I think I really mean it. I’m going to start talking to JC about it right now. For real. Maybe he’ll let me make this one exception…
Anyway, thanks for keeping my little secret. I owe y’all.
Y’all stay safe out there…
”And let us consider how we may spur one another on
toward love and good deeds,
not giving up meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing,
but encouraging one another—
and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:25-26