Taking Notes or Playing Games?

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed examination of factors that affect perceptions of and attitudes towards multitasking in video conferencing. We first report findings from interviews with 15 professional users of videoconferencing. Our interviews revealed the roles and potential link of technology and activity. We then report results from a controlled online experiment with 397 participants based in the United States. Our results show that the technology used for multitasking has a significant effect on others' assumptions of what secondary activity the multitasker is likely engaged in, and that this assumed activity in turn affects evaluations of politeness and appropriateness. We also show that different layouts of the video conferencing UI can affect perception of engagement in the meeting and in turn ratings of polite or impolite behavior. We propose a conceptual model that captures our results and use the model to discuss implications for behavior and for the design of video communication tools.

Large Scale Analysis of Multitasking Behavior During Remote Meetings

“…While multitasking during one's own work mostly impacts personal productivity, special consideration of multitasking during meetings is warranted, as this can additionally impact other colleagues and their productivity [31]. Past work has looked at how people engage in multitasking both during in-person meetings and presentations [6,30,31], as well as online collaborative activities, such as remote meetings leveraging subjective feedback or perceptions [45,62]. For example, in educational settings, the use of laptops during a lecture has been shown to have a negative impact on attention, where students tend to engage in activities such as web-surfng or emailing rather than activities related to the lecture [6,30].…”

“…However, in other studies, people who multitask during in-person meetings report to do so in order to interleave other important activities as they peripherally pay attention to the meeting and engage only when relevant [31]. In online settings, both meeting related and personal multitasking are seen as ways people's attention could divert from the actual conversation, though multitasking on a single screen is considered more acceptable than when multitasking is happening on a diferent screen -often presumed to be unrelated to the meeting [45]. Similarly, a study on video-chats among teens found that boredom was the main reason why teens would multitask during a video chat, wherein they would engage in scrolling social feeds or play games [62].…”

“…. Prior work has investigated how people engage in multitasking during collaborative activities such as meetings and video chats, both in-person and online [30,31,45,62]. However, these works are mainly based on small-scale qualitative studies, and to the best of our knowledge, no research to date has reported systematic and comprehensive evidence from large populations.…”

Trust and COVID-19

“…Such technologies do not facilitate eye contact between participants, and they allow individuals to be engaged in other tasks that are not perceivable to other participants. Video conferencing that does not facilitate the perception of eye contact reduces trust [3], and head movements away from the camera in video conferencing conversations tend to be perceived negatively, depending on how those head movements are interpreted [14]. In addition, without a shared context (e.g., a physical workspace), trust between co-workers can be negatively impacted [7].…”

Not So Different? Student and Professional Perceptions of Mobile Phone Etiquette in Meetings

“…First, since this study mimicked Washington et al’s (2014) research on formal and informal meetings, we did not focus specifically on virtual meetings (with or without webcams) or conference calls in which participants were located at remote sites. Although some work has been done on perceptions of multitasking during meetings (Marlow, van Everdingen, & Avrahami, 2016), more information is needed in order to understand student and professional perceptions of appropriate mobile phone usage in remote meeting settings.…”