”I need to respond to this” – Contributions to group creativity in remote meetings with distractions

Remote meetings have become more prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic and technology that facilitates remote work. There is limited research on the effect of remote meetings on group performance and the goal of this study is to identify how distractions affect the individual and group creativity in remote work meetings. A virtual study was conducted where groups of four people participated in divergent and convergent thinking tasks. One group member was assigned an additional non-meeting task while another was assigned as a scribe. Measures of creative performance (e.g., uniqueness of idea) of the distracted members and the group were analyzed. The results show that the distractee contributed (on average) less time and ideas when compared to monotaskers and those assigned as a scribe. The study highlights ways that remote meetings can facilitate creativity.