Personal conferences generate more ideas – both creative and original ones – than video conferencing, which resulted in less overall creativity. These results come from an in-depth investigation of more than 600 people that explored both advantages and drawbacks to using tech to work remotely versus face-to-face collaboration.

Videoconferencing hampers creative ideas
According to researchers at Columbia and Stanford universities, nearly 600 participants worked in pairs for five minutes, both individually or almost directly together, to generate creative ways of using bubble wrap or Frisbee in innovative ways. After that period was up, each person selected their best idea before judges scored it based on novelty and value considerations.

Researchers observed that teams involved with Zoom produced significantly fewer ideas. Furthermore, many of those ideas scored as “far less imaginative” by judges.
Similar results were witnessed through analysis of 1,490 engineers participating in brainstorm workshops at a multinational telecom agency. Researchers provided various theories as to what might occur when Zoom kills creativity under such circumstances.

Why does in-person collaboration matter more than digital meetings?
An overlooked factor of in-person collaborations is employees sharing physical space together and seeing cues from their environment that stimulate ideas generation, but in digital meetings employees’ eyes tend to stay on screens rather than paying attention to personal settings; which researchers state “reduces associative flow of underlying idea periods”.

Zoom calls are used as part of this study because pairs on these calls spend more time looking at one another than looking around, remember fewer unexpected props (an enormous house plant or bowl of lemons) throughout a room compared with in-person pairs, and therefore tend to spend more time communicating among themselves rather than discussing topics as per usual.

Why: Switch up and make more imaginative moves – take a stroll.

One thing everyone understands is that people tend to move less when looking at an exhibition display, yet movement has long been associated with enhanced creativity. One 2014 Stanford research found, for instance, that creative output increased by an average of 60% when walking instead of sitting down (compared with sitting).

“Staying Unnetheless Impedes Creativity”

Professor Jeffrey Bailenson from Stanford University

At in-person and phone meetings alike, our bodies move naturally; searching around, walking around, multitasking and using our hands are all movement that enhances and stimulates creative thought processes.

If Zoom is hindering your creativity, take these steps.

1 Select an Appropriate Medium

Video calls can be useful tools for large teams working remotely to share and receive information, while their cost savings make them attractive as a method to bring people working from different places together. However, research shows they’re unsuited for brainstorming effectively – for efficient brainstorming sessions meet in person instead.

2 Switch Further

Movement has long been associated with improved creativity. If Zoom meetings are hindering employee creativity, why not all arrange a strolling meeting through a park instead? Exchanging views could give your ideas new momentum!

3 Limit Screen Time

It isn’t only screen time that has an adverse impact on our creativity when brainstorming; too much newsfeed, communication and leisure don’t allow our brains to wander and find an optimal state for problem-solving. Spend less time staring at screens and you might discover your ideas flow more freely as a result!