Barco

The majority of people find meetings stressful. Research from Vanson Bourne and Barco revealed that for over 8 in 10 respondents, meeting stress begins even before a meeting has started in terms of organising or preparing for a meeting. But what role does technology, designed to ease and enhance meetings, play in actually causing stress?

Findings indicated that close to 9 in 10 respondents experience technology-related stress about meetings. Fears include unexpected technology failure, faulty connections and incompatible technology. 70% reported that they regularly experience stress in trying to share meeting information with different people. 62% often find simply using meeting conference technology stressful; and 58% frequently find sharing content or screens during meetings using technology stressful.

Alongside this, a study with MindLab into the emotional and physiological implications of meeting technology struggles revealed that participants peak stress levels were 63% higher when tech problems occurred in meetings than when meetings ran smoothly. Indeed, people’s heart rates reached 179bpm when they were trying to hold a meeting and the technology they were using did not work. With resting heart rates from 60-100 bpm, this is a key indicator of serious stress. Findings interestingly found that France is the country most likely to be stressed out by using meeting room technology.

Stresses about technology issues are evidently proving to be a regular reality for most people and the real life study vividly indicates the serious levels of stress experienced. Technology should make meetings run more effectively, efficiently and easily, yet there are clearly many issues within the way meeting-room technology is dealt with in many organisations.

Click here for the conclusions from the meeting stress test