A new study has challenged the effectiveness of online meetings, suggesting that non-visual communication methods that better synchronize and promote hearing matters more effectively.
The findings showed that it may be worthwhile to deactivate video activity at online conferences through various tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, to encourage better communication and social interaction through solution sessions. -cooperative questions.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, examined collection information – an organization’s ability to solve a wide range of problems – and how synchronization in non-verbal glue helps developing it.
‘We found that video conferencing can reduce general information,” said Anita Williams Woolley, Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon Tepper Business School.
“This is because it leads to a more unequal contribution in conversation and disturbs voice synchronization. Our study confirms the importance of audio cues, which appear to be compromised. with video access, “she said in a paper that appeared in the magazine PLoS One.
Basically, conversation is what happens when at least two speakers take turns sharing their thoughts, and non-verbal cues are how they establish when and how to they take those efforts.
Currently, video conferencing has become a de facto tool for group collaboration within many organizations.
A common assumption is that technology that helps simulate a face-to-face interface through a video camera will be most effective in achieving the same results.
To challenge this notion, researchers focused on two types of synchronization: face expression synchronization and prosodic synchronization.
Face expression synchronization is very simple and involves the movement of face features. On the other hand, protein synchronization captures sound, tone, emphasis, and rhythm of speech.
Woolley and her colleagues drew together a large, diverse sample of 198 people and divided them into 99 pairs.
During a 30-minute session, each duo completed six tasks designed to verify common intelligence.
The organizations with video access achieved some sort of common information through face-to-face synchronization, suggesting that, when video is available, colleagues should be aware of these things.
However, the researchers found that prosodic synchronization improved information collection whether or not the group had access to video technology and that this synchronization was reinforced by parity in efforts. speak.
“Most surprisingly, however, video access has reduced the ability of couples to achieve parity in speech endeavors, meaning that the use of video conferencing can limit prosodic synchronization and, as that, to prevent the collection of information, “the researchers noted.
* Edited from IANS report