Workers think less creatively in Zoom meetings, study finds

Face-to-face gatherings produce more ideas - and more inventive ones - than videoconferencing, say researchers

As if the endless muting and freezing, the need for shelves lined with high literature, and the constant fear of a colleague wandering on screen unclothed were not enough to worry about, researchers have found that Zoom stifles creativity.

Meeting face to face produced more ideas, and ideas that were more creative, compared with videoconference discussions, according to lab experiments and a field study at a firm with offices around the world.