You know how we’ve all been glued to Zoom for a year in an effort to mimic the face-to-face cues of meetings?
Zoom might not be the best way to do that.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University studied the effectiveness of collaboration and group efforts on video and audio calls, and they were surprised by their own findings: Videoconferencing hampered group collaboration and problem solving. Researchers found that video conferencing “can actually reduce collective intelligence… because it leads to more unequal contribution to conversation and disrupts vocal synchrony. Our study underscores the importance of audio cues, which appear to be compromised by video access.”
Audio cues, the researchers found, are pivotal to task success — more so than facial cutes.
In tracking both facial and speech cues, they found that video not only had no impact on group intelligence, but that video also reduces audio cue synchrony and lowers a pair’s ability to take turns. This reduces equal exchange, and hurts collective intelligence.
Translation: Ditch the Zoom meetings - get on the phone and get more stuff done!