VIDEOCONFERENCING STIFLES CREATIVITY

Being tethered to a screen makes us less likely to mentally wander, and this has an impact on our creative thinking

Thanks to the pandemic, more people are or have been working from home. Multiple studies and surveys have shown that many would like to carry on doing so, even as the threat from COVID-19 fades. New research carried out in the USA, however, suggests that in-person teams tend to perform better at certain tasks than those working remotely.

Specifically, the researchers found that teams working remotely performed less well at idea generation than teams working face-to-face. When it came to the next stage of the job selecting which of those ideas were worth pursuing - the two cohorts performed equally well.

The study involved 602 participants, who were paired randomly. With half the pairs sitting face-to-face in one room, and half using videoconferencing software, subjects were asked to come up with novel uses for a product such as a Frisbee or bubble wrap, then, after five minutes, were given a minute to select the best of those ideas. All of their ideas were then passed to a team of independent judges who rated them for both creativity and practicality.