A new study shows that the constant muting and freezing and the fear of a colleague doing something unexpected on-screen during Zoom meetings stifles creativity.
Zoom Makes People Less Creative
According to lab experiments and a field study at a firm with offices worldwide, meeting face to face produced more ideas and ideas that were more creative than videoconference discussions.
While the benefits of Zoom and other videoconferencing tools made them indispensable in the pandemic, the study suggests that heavy reliance on the technology comes at a cost to creativity, according to The Guardian.
Dr. Melanie Brucks, an assistant professor of marketing at Columbia University in New York, said that it is important to have multiple creative ideas to draw from. Having a larger pot of creative ideas will help increase your probability of success.
How Videoconferencing Became a Factor to Lack of Creativity
Brucks and her colleague, Jonathan Levav at Stanford University, began their investigation before the pandemic when managers reported having trouble innovating with remote workers.
Brucks was skeptical that videoconferencing was a factor, suspecting that difficulties coordinating large teams online might be the problem instead. One of the factors that they've already considered is Zoom fatigue.
In order to find out, the researchers recruited more than 600 volunteers who were paired up to tackle a creativity task either together in the same room or through Zoom, according to Telegraph UK.
The pairs only had five minutes to develop creative uses for a Frisbee or bubble wrap, and they were only given a minute to choose their best idea.
Independent judges ruled that turning a Frisbee into a plate was less creative compared to using it to knock fruit from a tree, while using bubble wrap to send morse code messages was more innovative compared to using it to protect a baby. Overall, those who worked over Zoom only had 20% fewer ideas than those who met face to face.
The same effect is seen in the real world. In a field study, the researchers analyzed ideas for new product producers by 1,490 engineers for a multinational company.
The engineers from Finland, Hungary, India, Israel, and Portugal, were randomly paired up and given only an hour to brainstorm products either in person or over Webex video conferencing. They then selected their best idea.
Writing in Nature, the researchers report that the engineers produced more ideas and innovative ideas when working face to face.
Brucks said that they are not only generating a larger number of creative ideas, but their best idea is a lot better. Virtual teams were just as good at selecting the best ideas from a bunch as those that met in person.
Things can easily go awry, though. For the field study, the engineers were at their best when brainstorming in the office.
But the Polish arm of the company held its idea-generating session in a hotel, leading to rampant non-compliance, driven by a notable preoccupation with the hotel catering's coffee and cookie station.
Other experiments in the lab revealed a connection between greater creativity and how much people looked around the room and noticed props.
Bruck suspects that on Zoom calls, people are focused on the screen and the person's face instead of what was being said.
Zoom fatigue is another factor that causes people to be less creative.
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Written by Sophie Webster
