Survey, poll and diary study with employees of a global technology company working from home, mid-April to mid-August 2020. Of 849 who completed onboarding, 149 answered a poll on meeting chat, mostly in Microsoft Teams, and 159 mentioned chat in diaries.
849 employeesCompleted an onboarding survey that asked about chat use in video meetings.
Chat pollIn all, 149 people answered six rating questions and a free text prompt about chat during meetings.
DiariesIn all, 159 people mentioned 331 chat issues in diary entries.
Thematic analysisTwo researchers coded the poll and diary comments, counting how many people raised each theme.
BWhat the study found
How much chatsurvey and poll results
•Of 849 survey respondents, 69.7% said they used chat in video meetings.Self-reported. 26.6% said they used chat in every or almost every meeting.
•Of 149 poll respondents, 72% said their own chat use had grown since working from home.Self-reported. 76% said others' use had grown. Most respondents said chat was a net positive, though views were split on distraction.
•Women were more likely than men to report using chat for questions, 16% against 8%.Self-reported, a reliable difference, p = 0.00068. Women aged 25 to 34 more often strongly agreed their use had grown, 59% against 27%.
What chat helpedthemes in poll and diary comments
•Respondents described chat as a way to take part without interrupting the speaker.Chat gave a voice to people who could not get the floor, such as introverts, newcomers and people without a microphone.
•Respondents described chat helping to share links, keep a record and work around technical problems.Humour and casual talk in chat also added social connection.
What chat hurtthemes in poll and diary comments
•Respondents described finding it hard to follow chat and the spoken meeting at once.Unrelated topics emerged. Some wanted clearer norms, and others had designated moderators. Distraction was more likely in large meetings and presentations.
•Respondents said presenters struggled to follow chat while presenting.Afterwards, chat and recordings were hard to make sense of without each other.
CKey takeaway
Parallel chat can make video meetings more inclusive by letting people share links, recover from technical trouble and contribute without interrupting. Agreed norms, moderators who voice key messages and tools that sort questions from chatter may stop side talk distracting.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
We report the opportunities and challenges of parallel chat in work related video meetings, drawing on a study of Microsoft employees’ remote meeting experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that parallel chat allows groups to communicate flexibly without interrupting the main conversation, coordinate action around shared resources, and also improves inclusivity. On the other hand, parallel chat can also be distracting, overwhelming, and cause information asymmetries. Further, we find that whether an individual views parallel chat as a net positive in meetings is subject to the complex interactions between meeting type, personal habits, and intentional group practices. We suggest opportunities for tools and practices to capitalise on the strengths of parallel chat and mitigate its weaknesses.
Research brief
By Advait Sarkar, Sean Rintel, Damian Borowiec, Rachel Bergmann, Sharon Gillett, Danielle Bragg, Nancy Baym, and Abigail Sellen.
Takeaway: Text chat in video meetings lets people share links, recover from technical trouble and contribute without interrupting, making meetings more inclusive. But side conversations can distract listeners and derail speakers. Agreed norms, moderators who voice key messages, and tools that sort questions from chatter could keep chat useful.
Why this matters
What was known
Chat alongside video meetings had become commonplace during COVID-19, yet research on video-mediated collaboration had barely examined it. Most evidence came from educational backchannels and livestreaming. (§1.1, p. 2)
What this paper adds
An account of how and why people use parallel chat in work video meetings, what helps and hinders, and guidelines and design directions for tools and practices. (Abstract, p. 1)
Who it matters to
Meeting organisers, teams and moderators, and designers of meeting platforms. Meeting organisers, teams, and moderators should make a guideline document (e.g. [22]) available generally and at the beginning of meetings.(§4.1, p. 5)
Research question
What are the opportunities and challenges of parallel chat in work-related video meetings, and what shapes whether people see it as a net positive?
Method and data
Design
Large-scale study combining an onboarding survey, diaries and one-off polls. This report draws on the onboarding survey, a poll on parallel chat (six 7-point Likert questions and a free-text prompt) and diary entries mentioning parallel chat.
Setting
Remote meetings of employees at a global technology company, working from home due to COVID-19.
Participants / data
849 participants completed onboarding, 715 at least one diary entry and 357 at least one poll. The parallel chat poll received 149 responses. 159 unique participants mentioned 331 parallel chat issues in diaries.
Duration
Mid-April to mid-August 2020.
Analysis
Semantic thematic analysis of verbatims (one researcher coded poll verbatims, another diary verbatims, both to saturation, then themes were aggregated). Counts are the number of individuals mentioning a theme. Demographic comparisons with Z tests.
Findings
Common, growing and mostly welcome. Among employees of a global technology company working from home in 2020, most used chat during video meetings. Most poll respondents said their own and others' use had grown since working from home and felt it was a net positive, though they were split on whether it distracted. #
“On the whole, I find the ability to have concurrent chat very helpful for effective meetings, even if it can be a distraction at times.”
A way in without interrupting. Chat let people take part without interrupting the spoken conversation, and gave a voice to those who could not get the floor (introverts, people with no microphone or noisy homes, and newcomers). #
“in person, there are visual cues a person wants to speak - a hand raised, a lean forward, a clearing of the throat. We don't have those cues in video meetings”
Links, records and laughs. Chat helped coordinate work, by sharing links and documents during the meeting, keeping a record and working around technical problems, while humour and casual talk added social connection. #
“Being able to add documentation, links and relevant information during a meeting and starting a chat that can continue post meeting has really helped cut down on follow ups.”
Split attention. Chat also distracted. Unrelated topics emerged, and many found it hard to follow chat and the spoken meeting at once. Some wanted clearer norms. Others had designated moderators. #
“If I paid attention to text chat and tried to keep up with it, I would no longer be paying attention to the meeting itself”
Presenters and recordings miss out. Chat created information gaps. Presenters struggled to follow it while presenting, and afterwards chat and recordings were hard to make sense of without each other. #
“as a presenter it is almost impossible to keep up with chat and present coherently.”
Who chats, and when it hurts. Use and impact varied. Women were more likely than men to report using chat for questions and answers, and younger women to report increased use. Distraction was more likely in large meetings and presentations. #
“This may be because women, particularly younger women, find it difficult to be heard in meetings, which is consistent with research on gender and meeting participation”
Questions this paper answers
Is chat during video meetings helpful or distracting?
Both. Most of 149 employees polled at a global technology company in 2020 felt it was a net positive, letting people ask questions and share links without interrupting. But it can bring in unrelated topics and split attention, especially in large meetings and presentations. Presenters struggle to follow it. (See §3, p. 3; §3.1, p. 3; §3.2, p. 4; §3.2, pp. 4–5.)
Does meeting chat make meetings more inclusive?
Employees said it can. It gives a voice to people who cannot get the floor, are shy or new, or lack a microphone or quiet room. Women were twice as likely as men to report using chat for questions and answers, perhaps because they find it harder to be heard. (See §3.1, p. 3; §3.3, p. 5.)
What do people use the chat in work video meetings for?
Mostly questions for the speaker or others, links to documents and webpages, unrelated conversation, agreement and kudos, adding information, replying to earlier messages, and humour. Chat also serves as a record and a way around technical problems. (See §3, p. 3; §3.1, p. 3.)
Why does meeting chat help some groups and annoy others?
It depends on the meeting and the group. Distraction was more likely in large meetings and presentations. People chatted less with unfamiliar audiences. Regular teams developed their own norms, and some found informal chat made large groups feel more inclusive and energetic. (See §3.2, p. 4; §3.3, p. 5.)
Quantitative results
Measure
Result
Where
Onboarding survey respondents who used parallel chat (N=849)
69.7%
§3, p. 3
Used parallel chat in every or almost every meeting
26.6%
§3, p. 3
Poll respondents (N=149) agreeing chat use had increased since working from home: own use / others' use
72% / 76%
§3, p. 3
Strongly agree own chat use increased: women aged 25-34 vs all well-represented groups
59% vs 27%; Z = 2.9924, p = 0.00278
§3.3, p. 5
Reported using chat for questions and answers: women vs men
16% vs 8%; Z = 3.3998, p = 0.00068
§3.3, p. 5
Contributions and implications
Establish expectations for chat before the meeting, and rotate moderator duties because monitoring chat is demanding. Because monitoring and facilitating chat imposes cognitive load, plan to rotate moderator duties across meetings and within longer meetings.(§4.1, p. 5)
Consider accessibility, encourage engagement and more voices, discourage divergent chat diplomatically, loop in the speaker, and incorporate chat highlights into meeting recaps.
Design tools that differentiate and annotate kinds of chat message, for example separating kudos from substantive comments. Despite there being several distinct categories of chat messages, current tools do not visually distinguish them.(§4.2, p. 6)
Integrate chat with the A/V, connect timestamped chat, transcripts and notes, and give moderators special views and controls.
Solutions should balance chat's opportunities and challenges rather than treat it as simply good or bad. Any design or normative solutions must recognize the dialectical nature of parallel chat as offering both opportunities and challenges(§6, p. 6)
Limitations
Most participants reported on Microsoft Teams, at one company. Future research should cover other companies and platforms. Most employees reported on experiences in Microsoft Teams.(§5, p. 6)
The data could not explain whether differing expectations about chat came from individual differences or from different tasks or types of collaboration.
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Concepts
Parallel chat
Text, images, files and links posted in a meeting's chat area alongside the audio/video meeting. This parallel chat is typically open to all meeting invitees and flows concurrently with the A/V focus of the meeting.(§1, p. 1)
Continuous partial inattention
From educational research: juggling chat and the main stream can lead to superficial processing for everyone involved. This "continuous partial inattention" [42] may permeate down to the micro level, and effect everyone in the encounter(§1.1, p. 2)
Danmaku
A livestreaming format, offered as a lesson for integrating chat with A/V: "Danmaku", in which text and reactions float over video(§1.1, p. 2)
Semantic zooming
A proposed way to scan busy chat by grouping posts at different levels of detail. automated categorisation could enable semantic zooming [56] in chat, where zooming out would group posts by time, keyword, reaction, etc.(§4.2, p. 6)
How to cite
Advait Sarkar, Sean Rintel, Damian Borowiec, Rachel Bergmann, Sharon Gillett, Danielle Bragg, Nancy Baym, and Abigail Sellen. 2021. The Promise and Peril of Parallel Chat in Video Meetings for Work. CHI EA 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451793
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sarkar2021the,
author = {Sarkar, Advait and Rintel, Sean and Borowiec, Damian and Bergmann, Rachel and Gillett, Sharon and Bragg, Danielle and Baym, Nancy and Sellen, Abigail},
title = {The Promise and Peril of Parallel Chat in Video Meetings for Work},
organization = {ACM},
booktitle = {CHI EA 2021},
year = {2021},
month = {May},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451793},
doi = {10.1145/3411763.3451793},
}