Are good ideas also sparked at a screen?
Communication works without us being together at the same place. We experience this every day in video conferences, and it is confirmed by scientists. Because almost as much audiovisual information is available to us on a screen as if we were sitting together around a conference table. Only: what is true for meetings is not necessarily the case for brainstorming. Can we do without personal meetings when we want to be creative together?
To answer this question, American scientists asked more than 6,000 teams of two to develop new ideas on how to use a Frisbee. Half of the pairs were sitting together in the same room. The other half were alone and connected by video conference. The result: the ideas produced by duos working virtually were much less creative. Why? To focus our attention on the person we’re speaking to, we largely screen out the outside world. Our field of vision shrinks to the screen size. This visual constriction also seems to restrict the mental processes that encourage creative thinking. And when creative minds are sitting together, they allow their gazes to wander through the room and thus let their minds wander. This sets associations in motion that encourages inventiveness. Several follow-up tests confirm that the visual constriction in video conferences inhibits creativity.
Conversely, the study provides another helpful finding for everyday working life: If concentration and focussing of the participants is a key factor in an important meeting, this implies that better results could be achieved in a video conference than in a face-to-face meeting.
Source
“Virtual Communication Curbs Creative Idea Generation”, by Melanie S. Brucks/Columbia University and Jonathan Levav/ Standford University, in “Nature”, Volume 605, 2022
You might also be interested in this
Spread the word – arouse interest
Share this page and arouse interest in others.
