Teamwork has been behind some of humanity's greatest achievements — the Beatles'biggest hits, putting a man on the moon, the smartphone. Do Zoom and other forms of video interaction, which get popular as working from home has become the norm during COVID-19, mar the creative process that led to such achievements? Yes, according to new research.
"We initially started the project in 2016 because we heard from managers that innovation was one of the biggest challenges with video interaction. And I'll admit, I was initially doubtful," said Melanie Brucks, author of the study.
Brucks spent four years exploring whether virtual interaction really had any impact on people's ability to generate innovative ideas. She found 602 people, including university students and staff, and divided them into pairs to work on tasks either in person or virtually. The tasks involved coming up with new uses for everyday things, such as bubble wrap (气泡垫), and each room had the same five items. The performance of each pair was determined by how many ideas they came up with and the novelty and value of their ideas as ranked by student judges. Researchers also used eye-tracking software, which found that virtual participants spent more time looking directly at their partner, as opposed to looking around the room.
"This visual focus on the screen narrows cognition (认知). In other words, people are more focused when interacting on video, which hurts the broad, expansive idea generation process," Brucks said. Jay Olson, a postdoctoral scholar who studies ways to measure creativity, said that people often look to their surroundings to help them generate ideas. "Objects in the room can stimulate new associations easier than trying to generate them all internally," said Olson.
Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, said the new research was an important first step. However, she said it was a mistake to conclude that creativity and videoconferencing are incompatible (不相容的). "Perhaps many of us make friends faster in person than over Zoom, and creativity develops when we're relaxed. But when Zooming from home, people are probably more relaxed than when in an experiment," she added.
