Virtual meetings crush creativity, new study finds A new study suggests the shift away from in-person interactions could have a negative effect on people's ability to brainstorm effectively. Researchers at Columbia University found people working face-to-face produced more ideas, and more creative ideas, compared to the those working virtually. However, when selecting which idea to pursue, those working via video call were no less effective. “Our results suggest that there is a unique cognitive advantage to in-person collaboration, which could inform the design of remote work policies,” Melanie Brucks and Jonathan Levav write in their paper, published in Nature. Jay Olson, a postdoctoral scholar at McGill University in Canada who studies the measurement of creativity, said that people often look to their surroundings to help them generate ideas. "Objects in the room can prompt new associations easier than trying to generate them all internally," said Olson, who wasn't involved in the research. "The authors find that interacting through a computer screen could unintentionally shift attention in a way that reduces the generation of these novel ideas."