Another Zoom meeting? Virtual meetings are not good for creativity

Over the past two years, have you held regular meetings via your computer screen? You may have noticed that you could come up with less creative ideas. New research shows that a Zoom or Teams meeting does not foster our creativity. No, when you meet face to face impact, innovative ideas arise more often than virtual meetings.

Melanie Brucks is an assistant professor of business marketing at Columbia Business School. She participated in the study published in The scientific journal Nature† For the past four years, she has researched whether video calls or online meetings influence creative and innovative ideas.

By the way, did you know that some colleagues, sometimes without you realizing it, drain energy? This is how you recognize these 7 types in the workplace.

When mosquitoes get together, is it a zoom meeting?#DTV

— 👨🏻‍🔧trust me, I’m an engineer👨🏻‍🔧 (@_TheEngineer86_) April 24, 2022

Explore creativity through virtual meetings

To do this, she and her fellow researchers took a closer look at students and employees. For the study, participants worked in pairs on different assignments. Sometimes virtually, sometimes in person. For homework, the pairs had to come up with new ideas for everyday things like bubble wrap or a Frisbee. The objects were in a room. A jury of students judged the creativity of the ideas.

In addition, software was used to analyze eye activity. It turned out that the duos that met spent practically more time staring at their partner on screen than on the mission. Participants also remembered the room less when meeting digitally than when they were actually in the room. According to Brucks, online meetings focus too much on video contact, which means innovative inspirations have less room, says them against cnn.

I check myself on camera before every zoom meeting pic.twitter.com/7aF56TOVWl

— feven Gezahegn 🇪🇹 (@feven_gezahegn) April 28, 2022

New ideas via Zoom or team meetings

Jay Olsen is a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University in Canada. He has been researching the topic of creativity for some time and explains that people often use the environment to come up with new ideas. “Objects in the room can spark new ideas,” he says. “Communicating via a computer screen diverts attention. As a result, new ideas are less likely to arise.

But the research went even further than that: doing the same kind of test with different engineers from different countries. They work for a telecommunications company and have been randomly assigned to pairs. One met online, the other face to face, with the aim of inventing a new product for the company. According to Bruck, the same kind of results followed. It turned out that video meetings not only had an effect on creativity in simple missions, but also in high-tech brainstorming sessions. The researcher concludes that no matter how often you use digital meeting options, creativity continues to flow less.

Research has shown that virtual meetings aren’t disastrous in all areas. Although creativity suffers, the practicalities were discussed as easily as that face to face come. Like evaluating and finding a better idea.

How has the workload increased over 3 decades?

30 years ago we sometimes had a 2 hour lunch in the afternoon

10 years ago, I was walking in the afternoon

today i’m making sandwiches in an online meeting

— head gasket (@guyduchene4) April 28, 2022

work from home

Ellen Langer is a professor of psychology at Harvard and wrote the book Become an artist: reinvent yourself through conscious creativity. She’s a little more nuanced about the creativity barrier of Zoom or Teams. According to her, it also depends on the creativity of a person and the nature of the mission. According to her, a relaxed environment influences creativity. „Do many of us face to face friends more easily than via Zoom. When we are more relaxed, we also become more creative. But on the other hand, some people are more relaxed when working from home.

I’ve been doing it for years too, 5:15 a.m. away from home, 9 a.m. at work, 6:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. at home. Wednesday free.
I think working from home is better.

— Ton Verhulst (@Ton_Verhulst) April 28, 2022

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