Masking may make video meetings more draining for neurodivergent workers, preprint suggests

Preprint, not yet peer reviewed.

Plenty of neurodivergent people will recognise the feeling: a day of video calls leaves you more wiped out than the same day in person. A new study asks whether masking is part of the reason.

What the researchers did

The researchers surveyed 332 neurodivergent adults, recruited through online community channels and word of mouth. Everyone answered anonymous questions about autistic traits, social camouflaging (hiding or suppressing autistic traits to meet social expectations) and how tired they feel after video meetings, often called “Zoom fatigue”.

What they found

• People with more autistic traits reported more camouflaging and more Zoom fatigue.
• Camouflaging was strongly linked to Zoom fatigue, even after taking account of things like age and gender.
• Statistically, camouflaging accounted for part of the link between autistic traits and Zoom fatigue, and that pathway was about twice as strong for women as for men.

The authors suggest video calls can add to the effort of masking, through constant self-view, grids of faces and fewer non-verbal cues.

What to keep in mind

This was a one-off, self-report survey, so it shows links, not cause and effect: it can’t prove that masking causes Zoom fatigue. Participants were found through online communities, so they may not represent all neurodivergent workers. And because it’s a preprint, other researchers haven’t yet checked the work. We have based this summary on the published abstract.

Why it matters

The authors point to adjustments employers could make: lighter meeting loads, protected recovery time, and making cameras optional. None of these are expensive. For many neurodivergent workers, “cameras optional” could be one of the simplest reasonable adjustments there is.