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YAO | Zoom and Gloom
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Every time I leave a Zoom meeting, I’m left with an acute sense of emptiness. There’s no satisfaction or relief derived from getting through a lecture without falling asleep. No lingering sense of happiness that usually comes from catching up with a friend. With a single click, I’m thrust back into the stark silence of my room — a silence that only reminds me how much of an illusion these on-screen interactions really are. Think about it: At the most basic level, we’re conversing with an amalgam of pixels that either form people’s out-of-focus faces or black boxes with some white letters on them.