## 2 Literature Review
### Video-Conferencing Tools (VCTs) and Interpersonal Communication  
As the lockdown continued to settle in and as people are known to adapt easily, video-conferencing platforms have become the new standard for business, educational and even casual meeting purposes. Among the most important platforms are Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex and Skype for Business [51]. Although they are a substitute for face-to-face interaction and have proven their worth, it has been shown that increased time spent on these platforms is mentally and physically draining [52] and, corroborated with other stress-inducing factors (e.g., lockdown), can eventually lead to exhaustion and burnout [53]. Online education and telecommuting (a term coined by [PERSON], a NASA communication systems designer, in the 1970s) were already on the map before the pandemic has broken out. For example, according to statistics, 35% of the Americans had already started working from home during 1997-2010 [54]. Therefore, pre-pandemic research has been undertaken in order to gain insight into the way the time spent before screens impacts people's behavior and health. It was noticed that personality traits, such as extraversion and introversion, play an important part in the burnout resulted from working from home, meaning that extroverts did not fit into this pattern, presenting burnout, as opposed to introverts, who were more at ease in this setup [55]. Other psychological problems such as depressive symptoms and sleep disturbances were found more in females than in males as well as in adolescents and students [56; 57]. [PERSON] [58] also lists some of the physical effects that the unrestrained screen time can have on adolescents, e.g., cardiovascular diseases, obesity, insulin resistance and impaired vision. To the psychological impact already provided by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic situation (e.g., higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression [59]; worry and sleep disruption [60; 61]; psychological distress [62]), the confinement followed by online activities have also added their part. Communicating through video-conferencing tools is strenuous, creating fatigue and taking a lot of our energy since, without non-verbal cues to help us decipher the covert and emotional meaning behind words, we have to rely more intensely on words and use a prolonged eye contact [63]. Moreover, this level of intimacy (direct eye gaze and face close-ups) is usually reserved for intimate relationships, but has become the new way of interacting with coworkers and acquaintances and seems to disrupt our productivity [64]. Proximity and the size of other people's images (and even our own) can intrude into our personal space and make us see them as narrowing [65]. In addition, it seems that VCTs impede our creativity and problem-solving due to the fact that walking, moving around in the physical environment (from rooms to rooms, buildings to buildings) or standing in front of people make us more focused on the problem [63]. Furthermore, poor connection, lagging time in responding or frozen screens also hinder communication, making it almost impossible to interpret the non-verbal cues and facial expressions [66]. Studies have also shown that VCTs distort the participants' spatial environment, particularly affecting their gaze direction, not knowing when it is their time to speak, leading to a lack of trust among the people involved in the meeting, which is paramount for a good inter-group communication [67; 68; 69]. There is a lot of research on video-conferencing used for education, dealing mainly with the best teaching techniques and online platforms [70; 71; 72], teachers' and students' perceptions [73; 74; 75; 76; 77] or students' satisfaction [78] regarding distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic.