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New media and technology has taken human’s life into an advance condition of society. It has become a significant part that supports people’s activities, not only in basic activities of our daily lives but also in work-related activities. Particularly, in the way people communicate to one another. The emergence of new media has provided a new way for people to communicate. Furthermore, in terms of work-related activities, new media has enabled workers to carry out a new form of having a meeting: via online video call. Some companies in Indonesia have worked this way, especially when the meetings involve several parties which spread in various areas across the country. Recently, Jakpat has conducted a survey related to the way workers in Indonesia have their meetings done. We would like to see which one they prefer more nowadays, face-to-face meeting or meeting via online video call. The survey involved 300 workers aged 23-48 in 10 big cities, including Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, Makassar, Bali, and Yogyakarta.

From 300 workers we surveyed, we found that only 30% of them have ever had meetings via online video call, with 73% admitted that they were having difficulties during meeting via online video call. In addition, many workers who have done meetings via online video call are in the youngster’s age group among 23-29 year-old, and currently live on the main island of Indonesia, Java. When asked about the difficulties they have ever had while doing meetings via online video call, they stated that those difficulties were including slow internet connection (91%), confusing disorganized voices or voice distortion (35%), and high risk of misunderstanding caused by the chaos (24%). Indeed, new media and technology not only comes with all glory, but also brings some side effects with it. However, 68% of workers, whether they have had meetings via online video call or have not, agreed that meetings via online video call has some advantages compared to face-to-face meetings. Those advantages were including saving transportation cost (78%) and time (60%). Moreover, 60% agreed that meeting via online video call is more practical than face-to-face meeting.

Next question is, how about the media platform workers used to organize meeting via online video call? Most of them (83%) said that Skype is the most widely used media, while the less popular ones are LINE (26%) and Yahoo! Messenger (20%). Meanwhile, there were 70% of workers who have never had meetings via online video call, therefore the only form of meeting they have ever had is face-to-face meeting. Following this, only 22% of workers admitted that they were having difficulties during face-to-face meetings. When asked about what kind of difficulties they could possibly have during a face-to-face meeting, they stated that those difficulties were including punctuality problem (70%), traffic jam issue (34%), and also, a few of them (18%) admitted that they usually find it difficult to concentrate during a face-to-face meeting due to tiredness at work. Indeed, face-to-face meeting is taking more energy than meeting via online video call. Besides, punctuality has been a fundamental problem for Indonesians for a long time. Could online video call be the solution for that kind of problem? This still needs further exploration.

Interestingly, most of workers (92%) agreed that a face-to-face meeting has more benefits compared to meeting via online video call. They were stating that the main benefit of a face-to-face meeting is that this form of meeting has lower risk of misunderstanding (84%) than a mediated meeting via online video call. Concurrently, they were also saying that a face-to-face meeting is more organized (58%) and more practical (15%) than meeting via online video call. Apparently, most of Indonesian workers are still comfortable to do their meetings in an old-fashioned way. This way they think they can immediately solve any kinds of misunderstanding appeared during meetings. Even for workers who have already had mediated meetings via online call, it’s found that most of them (95%) agreed that a face-to-face meeting brings more advantages than meeting via online video call.

Hence, most of workers (82%) nowadays still think that a face-to-face meeting is way more effective than mediated meeting via online video call. For them who have already experienced meeting via online video call, most of them (83%) admitted that their reason for choosing a face-to-face meeting is because of the difficulties they got during a mediated meeting. Furthermore, almost all workers (97%) admitted that their current working place also prefers a face-to-face meeting to mediated meeting via online video call. This indicates that even in a digital world nowadays, there are many companies in Indonesia which still rely on a face-to-face form of communication rather than the mediated ones.

Lastly, when asked about their preferences if they were in a decision maker position in their office, most of workers (89%) stated that they would choose a face-to-face meeting over a mediated meeting, particularly via online video call. As long as it can be done by a face-to-face meeting, they don’t find it necessary to have a mediated meeting via online video call. Whether it’s the difficulties that technology brings despite all of its benefits, or the advantages of a face-to-face meeting that can’t be provided by new media, Indonesian workers nowadays still prefer to do a face-to-face meeting.

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below. JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.

Click the icon to download XLS report (Bahasa)

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