Is Zoom the way of the future? Or just another tech platform? Greg Bruce investigates.
We are a sad collection of grievances, aren't we? Always finding something new to whine about. This week it's Zoom, the app none of us had heard of five weeks ago, first learned to use four weeks ago, raved about three weeks ago and started falling out of love with two weeks ago.
A whole class of articles have sprung up across a bored and restless media, grousing about Zoom fatigue and exhaustion, and related pejoratives. I hate modern technology as much as the next person for the way it has hijacked the reward centres of our brains, hollowed out the media - and with it democracy - distorted the way we receive and process information, devalued deep thinking, and facilitated the growth of extremism, all while its owners have avoided paying the tax that might have at least helped to mitigate that damage. But just for a second we should pause and ask whether technology is the real villain here.
Zoom is not Facebook or Instagram or - God help us - Twitter. It's just a screen that enables you to see people you otherwise couldn't see, sometimes overwhelmingly large and terrifying numbers of people, all at the same time, shouting over the top of each other and ignoring the fact you put up your virtual hand minutes ago. Yes, of course all this sucks, but have you ever sat - or much, much worse, walked around several central city blocks - in a real-life meeting? Zoom is helping you! For God's sake, can't you see it's helping you?!
Yes, it's not ideal to have to talk to people on a screen where you can see only their faces and annoying shoulders; yes, it's frustrating not to be able to pat people condescendingly on the back, or go in for a kiss on the cheek only to accidentally kiss their ear; and yes, it would be nice to see people's pants and at least have the possibility of them sneezing a viral load on you.