Why do people "multitask" with more online meetings? The "reasonable reason" seen from the research results

There is something strange about the etiquette of online meetings when working from home. It doesn't matter if you don't wear your pants properly, but if you keep your eyes on the screen, you'll be considered rude because you don't respect the other person. This implies that something else is being distracted on the terminal. But once you turn off the camera, everything from folding laundry to shopping for food is multitasking.

If you've done more than one thing during an online meeting, you're not alone. A 2020 survey of employees by Microsoft found that more attendees and longer online meetings, and more regular meetings than meetings with a specific purpose, more multitasking. It became clear that there was a tendency. In addition, participants are most likely to multitask in the morning, and meetings of 80 minutes or more are six times more likely to multitask than meetings of 20 minutes or less.

The survey that Microsoft recently released the results is said to be the "largest survey so far" on multitasking and remote work. The results were presented at the International Conference on Human-Computer Installation (HCI) held in May 2009.

Protect yourself from too many online meetings

In this study, researchers at Amazon, Microsoft, and University College London found logs about access to Microsoft Outlook emails and files on OneDrive for nearly 100,000 Microsoft employees in the United States. The data was analyzed. The purpose is to clarify the frequency and background of participants multitasking in online meetings.

"You can" somehow "attend an online conference," says Microsoft Chief Scientist Jamie Teavan. "If the meeting is recorded, you can watch the recording at double speed later without attending in real time, or you can play it while doing something and listen to what's important."

The study found that multitasking during online meetings is a coping mechanism to protect mental health. The only thing that protects you from it is from too many online conferences.

The report's lead author and Microsoft Research intern, Tsao Hanchen, will require employers to be more flexible about multitasking when teams work remotely. Point out that it became clear. Even if someone occasionally glances everywhere on the screen during a meeting, it doesn't mean they're rude, and as the number of online meetings grows and it takes a long time, "time to focus on your work." It seems that they have a habit of multitasking to catch up with the decrease, "the report analyzes.

There are too many meetings to finish my work

The log data used in the survey was collected from February to May 2008, when Microsoft was in a completely remote work system. As a "multitasking" every time an employee attending a video meeting in Microsoft Teams sends, forwards, replies to an email, or edits a PowerPoint slide or Excel sheet stored in the cloud. It is recorded (note that many of the actions such as reading emails and viewing social media cannot be detected by this method). As a result, it was found that some people sent emails at 30% of online meetings.

To understand the details of multitasking, the research team analyzed diaries and statements written by 700 employees working at Microsoft in the United States and abroad at about the same time as the log data collection period. Of those, 15% said they thought they were more productive with multitasking.

Some multitasking is to focus on the meeting, such as taking notes or reading material on the agenda. However, the records kept by employees included actions such as exercising, playing games, and watching videos of cats. These can be distracting from the meeting, but respondents said they were reacting to or coping with a meeting that had nothing to do with them.

It also highlights the fact that many people do multitasking to get their work done. One Microsoft employee said, "I have to multitask. Otherwise, I won't be able to finish the work I have to do."

Nearly 40% of employees who keep a diary say that the number of online meetings has increased rapidly due to the shift to working from home, and they have to work during the meetings to deal with it. The research team points out that multitasking to meet the required productivity causes mental fatigue and leads to behavior that lacks respect for others.

The cognitive load exerted by video conferences, especially the load exerted by long-term gaze exposure at close range, results in so-called "Zoom fatigue". This phenomenon is now widely known, and researchers at Stanford University are developing indicators to measure the degree of Zoom fatigue.

According to a Microsoft Research sergeant, some of the survey participants were offended when their colleagues were doing other work during the online meeting and felt they weren't paying attention. "However, after some time, we find that we have become accustomed to remote meetings under a pandemic and are accepting and accepting these behaviors. Everything happens in a telecommuting environment. It will be recognized that it is possible. "

Working from home reduces the amount of time you can concentrate

Another large study of how video conferences were used in the early months of the pandemic found that working from home under a pandemic increased meetings and coordination, while reducing uninterrupted time to focus on work. , Meetings with bosses, 1on1, and interactions with people inside and outside the company are all known to have decreased. The study, conducted by the Becker Frydman Lab at the University of Chicago, analyzed data from March 2008 collected from about 10,000 employees of a major IT company in Asia (company name not disclosed).

According to researchers, the company's working hours increased by 30% during the pandemic, but it is estimated that productivity fell by 20% during the same period. In fact, employees, especially those raising children, were less productive, while productivity was required to be at the same level as when they were working in the office. Therefore, people without children have an advantage, and disadvantageous situations have arisen for women, employees who have children at home, and employees who have just joined the company.

In this study, researchers at the University of Chicago used productivity analysis tools like Microsoft's Workplace Analytics to assess how much time they spent in meetings and how attendees interacted with each other. Although it is not a study that directly considers multitasking, indicators such as work interruption and "concentration time" (time that can be worked together for 2 hours or more without interruption at a meeting etc.) are used in the survey. ing.

After the shift to full telecommuting, the companies surveyed reduced their concentration time from 34 hours a week to 32 hours a week. In contrast, online conferencing has skyrocketed from less than an hour a week to 21 hours. The authors of the paper point out that the large number of online conferences discourages workers from focusing on this.

In addition, the time spent on email increased by two hours a week. In addition, employees with children generally work longer hours than those without children, and younger employees tend to be less productive than older employees.

Is it useless by email?

As many workers and businesses are looking at ways to safely return to the office, it will be important to consider more deeply about how people can or cannot work together. .. If this analysis applies to other industries, returning to office may be a plus for those who are vulnerable to the negative impact of full telecommuting.

Michael Gibbs, a professor at the University of Chicago, one of the authors of the paper, points out that businesses will need to adapt to employees who want a more flexible way of working. For example, they want to work from home several days a week to reduce the burden of long commuting, or want to stay home when their child returns from school.

Gibbs, meanwhile, says that office work a few days a week will be necessary for many companies. He cites the reason, "this study shows that virtual dialogue is not a complete alternative to face-to-face interaction."

Gibbs says that conversations created by the flow and ideas are an important element of innovation, and there is no substitute for them. "Such productive coincidences are unlikely to happen in Zoom, because all Zoom meetings must be scheduled in advance." And as you know, in online conferences, not everyone is always focused on what they're talking about.

Long before the Zoom conference and the era of pandemics, there were problems with conferences. But the findings reiterate the need for more people to ask themselves, "Isn't this online conference just an email?"

* Click here for articles related to remote work by "WIRED".

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