Whether by Zoom, Teams or Skype, there is no longer any way to escape videoconferences. Only here, a study of the very serious scientific journal Nature demonstrates that there are fewer creative ideas in videoconferencing.
It is a study that brought together several marketing experts from the American universities of Columbia and Stanford, which has just made the front page of the indisputable scientific journal. While in the United States, according to recent surveys, no less than 20% of working days will be done from home, and will therefore always involve more videoconferences, the results of the researchers’ work cast a chill. They wanted to know the effects of this abandonment of physical interactions on innovation. In other words, the ability to generate new ideas.
The researchers began by dividing students into two groups. Some were arranged in pairs in the same room, others spoke to each other by videoconference. Each team had five minutes to find innovative uses for existing products, such as a frisbee or bubble wrap. The experience has been replicated in companies with 1,500 engineers located in five countries. Ditto, some held meetings in person, others spoke to each other through interposed screens. All had to offer innovative products for their company, which specializes in telecommunications.
The results were not very encouraging. They were clear: in-person meetings produced about 15% more ideas than virtual interactions. And they were the source of 13% of truly creative ideas. Little encouragement for video meetings: when it came to choosing the best ideas, already produced, then video conferencing was no longer an obstacle.
The researchers concluded that only creativity was inhibited by video meetings, while other skills seemed unaffected. Mélanie Bucks, one of the authors of the study, notes that her video witnesses spent twice as much time looking at themselves as at their colleagues. But, she says, people are more creative when they are less focused. Video calls focus attention on a limited space, the screen, and in particular one’s own image, and this undermines creativity. Morality, for the “brainstorming“, the production of new ideas, video is not a panacea.