Is Video Conferencing a Waste of Time? ... Brain's 'Creativity Circuit' Gets Blocked [Reading Science]

Research Team at Columbia University, USA

Video conference. Stock photo. Not related to the article.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] With the increase in remote work due to COVID-19, conducting work through video meetings has become more common. However, participants in video meetings often struggle to concentrate and especially find it difficult to come up with creative ideas. Scientists have identified the reasons for this phenomenon through a large-scale study. It is because video meeting participants face physical limitations that make psychological synchronization and concentration impossible, and instead of thinking about ideas, they end up just staring at the screen.

A research team from Columbia University in the United States published a paper containing these findings in the international academic journal Nature on the 27th. As lockdowns due to COVID-19 have continued for over two years, many workers worldwide, including in the U.S., have been working from home indefinitely. In this process, video meetings have also become routine. Workers welcomed this change. In a survey conducted last year, 75% of American workers responded that they would like to work from home at least one day a week. Additionally, 40% said they would want to quit if they had to go to the office all day to work with colleagues.

As a result, remote work including video meetings has become a global trend. Major U.S. companies such as Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, and Amazon have also made their work policies more flexible to promote working from home. A recent study even projected that American workers will continue to work from home about 20% of their working days even after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. On the other hand, concerns about inefficiency and lax work discipline have also been raised. In particular, many have pointed out that concentration during video meetings is significantly lower than in face-to-face meetings, and that creative ideas are not effectively gathered.

In response, the research team investigated the impact of remote work activation and video meetings on work efficiency and innovation by surveying 602 participants from five countries including the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. The results showed that although participants exchange the same information through video meetings, they face different physical and psychological environments compared to face-to-face meetings. Due to the limitation of interacting with others only through screens in video meetings, it is difficult to perceive psychological states or empathize. In contrast, face-to-face meetings allow emotional and psychological synchronization and faster understanding as participants recognize each other in the same physical space.

The research team pointed out, "Due to spatial and physical constraints, video meeting participants focus only on the screen and cannot pay attention to other participants or visual materials around them. Especially, this narrowed attention limits the associative processes in the brain that form the basis for idea generation." However, video meetings are not entirely useless. When selecting from already generated ideas, video meetings are as efficient as face-to-face meetings. The research team explained, "The results of this study suggest that virtual communication using video meeting technology comes with the clear cost of reduced creative idea production."