Let’s hope your boss doesn’t read it.
A Brooklyn developer and artist has created a digital tool called Zoom Escaper that enables users to receive tedious work-related video calls.
“Zoom Escaper is a tool for escaping Zoom meetings and other telecommunications scenarios,” said creator Sam Lavigne wrote on Twitter on Monday, the start of the project. “It allows you to sabotage your audio stream yourself, making your presence unbearable for others.”
It mimics, among other things, digital interference and disruptive sounds from outside.
The attendees are excited: the announcement has more than 3,000 preferences.
The digital destroyer is the perfect antidote to Zoom fatigue, a term for the overwhelming feelings of deflation and exhaustion caused by a year of working and learning remotely through the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At Zoom, behaviors that are usually reserved for close relationships – such as long stretches of direct gaze and faces seen up close – have suddenly become the way we deal with informal acquaintances, coworkers, and even strangers,” Jeremy N. Bailenson wrote. in a paper he recently published on the new phenomenon in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior.
Despite its name, Zoom Escaper can be used “in any application using your microphone”, including Google Measure, Lavigne said.
Users can download the program for free from ZoomEscaper.com. Lavigne has detailed instructions for use available there.
Effects include technical problems, such as delays, echoes and faulty sound. It also includes outside disturbances, such as the sounds of a man crying, a strong wind blowing, a baby crying, construction and dogs barking.
You can also upload your own disruptive sounds to the site.
Make sure you try it out with a friend before attempting to take out a work call: users cannot hear the sound effects during a meeting – only the other participants.