I have a type of social anxiety that most often surfaces when I’m interacting with authority figures, like bosses or police officers. It was exacerbated by a few managers I had early in my career, who would milk my nervousness for extra output. Now when I leave an in-person interaction with an authority figure, I tend to spend the rest of the day wondering whether I phrased something wrong and therefore my career is over. In big work meetings, I basically try to evaporate. And don’t even get me started on “networking receptions.” But with Zoom, I’ve found myself feeling more relaxed, more emotionally regulated, and better able to advocate for myself. I feel as though I can more easily speak up in big meetings, and I can express myself to my bosses without worrying about my self-presentation. To me, Zoom turns everyone else into fake people—not people with power over me, just little faces in boxes on my screen. If the trick to beating stage fright is to imagine the audience members in their underwear, it helps that on Zoom, even the most important people are athleisure-clad and holding babies. Social anxiety is driven by a fear of being perceived negatively by others because you’ve misunderstood the subtle norms of a situation. But on Zoom, the rules are simpler. There’s no handshake, no decision about where in the room to sit, no need to even pick out an outfit from the waist down.