Let’s hope your boss doesn’t read this.
A developer and artist from Brooklyn has created a digital tool called Zoom Escaper that allows users to leave boring work-related video calls behind.
“Zoom Escaper is a tool to help you escape Zoom meetings and other telecommunication scenarios,” creator Sam Lavigne wrote on Twitter Monday, launch of the project. “It allows you to self-sabotage your audio stream, making your presence unbearable to others.”
It mimics digital interference and disturbing outside noises, among other things.
And it has enthusiastic meeting attendees: the announcement has over 3,000 likes.
The Digital Destroyer is the perfect antidote to Zoom fatigue, a term for the overwhelming feelings of draining and exhaustion caused by a year of remote work and learning from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At Zoom, behaviors usually reserved for close relationships – such as long strokes of direct gaze and faces from close range – has suddenly become the way we interact with casual acquaintances, colleagues and even strangers,” wrote Jeremy N. Bailenson, in a article he recently published on the new phenomenon in the journal Technology, Mind and Behavior.
Despite its name, Zoom Escaper can be used “in any program that uses your microphone,” including Google Meet, Lavigne said
Users can download the program for free at ZoomEscaper.com. Lavigne has detailed instructions for use available there.
Effects include technical issues such as delays, echoes and choppy audio. They also include some outside interference, 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 disturbing noises to the website.
Make sure to try it out with a friend before attempting to leave a work call: users can’t hear the sound effects during a meeting – only the other participants.