Virtual collaboration hinders a key component of creativity

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Experiments and fieldwork show that teams working together online produce fewer ideas than those collaborating in person — a first step towards answering the question of which modes of communication are generally best for creativity.

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  1. Emőke-Ágnes Horvát

    1. Emőke-Ágnes Horvát is in the School of Communication, in the McCormick School of Engineering and at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.

  2. Brian Uzzi

    1. Brian Uzzi is at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, in the Kellogg School of Management and in the McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.

Despite some awkward fumbling with Zoom, many workers have adopted videoconferencing as the new normal for interacting with socially isolated colleagues during the COVID-19 pandemic, and are increasingly demanding to work from home permanently. The resulting shift from in-person teamwork to virtual collaborations has become a central concern for employers and educators. Writing in Nature, Brucks and Levav1 provide fresh insight into how the creativity of teams collaborating through videoconferencing stacks up against that of teams working together in person.

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Nature 605, 38-39 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00126-2

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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