Rough-Cut Research Peer-Review: On Remote Work

 One more thread to be saved before I write something of my own; this time it's James Heathers' scathing take down of Talia Varley's article in the Globe and Mail. in which Varley attempts to prove that remote work negatively affects our ability to learn and innovate. If I were still teaching, I might give Varley's article to students to have them explore the studies for research method and stats issues, and then let them read Heathers' review! This is a huge call out to all school boards to make stats or research methods mandatory! Kids (and adults) needs to be able to understand problems with some of the "research" spreading around out there. Heathers explains,  

I'm starting to get more and more interested in the formal positioning around remote work, because it heavily involves two things I do: manage people, and punch up on bad science. So, with that in mind, I did not like this article. I will tell you why and try not to swear. 

Two links here. Let's actually click them.

  

 

"Loneliness and cognitive function in the older adult: a systematic review" In THE OLDER ADULT is already invalidating. This is a review of studies about how aging, cognitive decline, and loneliness interrelate. The conclusion is: there are some correlations, many of them quite weak, and there is absolutely no causality that can be drawn from it. The larger samples include adults >75 years, adults mean age 80, etc. It is a discussion about whether or not we can learn anything about the mechanisms by which cognitive decline in the elderly potentially happens (is it hypercortisolism? is it executive function decline? etc.) and is COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED from the question of 'changing between in-person and remote work'. Terrible citation. An academic editor would have your balls. 

Let's do the next one. "In 2020, a Microsoft study..." produces an article in Fortune Well (Fortune has a wellness section? What kind of clown car full of Infinite Wellness babble would be buried there... hanging out for Outside Magazine to have a section on options trading?) But in the Fortune article, there's indeed a link to a Microsoft study. "Do remote work and video meetings actually tax our brain more than in-person work? The brain science suggests, yes." Oh weeping Jesus on the cross, here we go. I'm just going to screen cap this because it's miserable beyond belief. Maybe SEVEN pairs in the remote/together condition. Using the word 'prove'. (AGH) No methods, no citation, no details on WHAT THE TASK WAS, who the people were, where it happened, etc.

 

These researchers should be ashamed of themselves, because if this was a senior undergraduate term experiment, I would fail it. 'Brainwave patterns'. 'important learnings'. A sample size you could fit in a Toyota Sienna. Bilge. Utter twattery. But even if this study was perfect, is it in any way reflective of how remote work is done? In any remote or hybrid job you have, do you have two people closely cross-monitoring common task performance or do you just do shit separately 98% of the time and then communicate? This isn't even a citation, it's a fly-by of Microsoft's marketing material. Anyway: first two, absolutely dreadful. No points. 

Let's do the next one. Again, an intermediate link. "Fully remote (40 percent) and hybrid work (38 percent) are associated with an increased likelihood of anxiety and depression symptoms compared to in-person work (35 percent)." Oh really. Well, of course the study isn't linked, because why would you make it easy for people, so I found the press release, which led to the IBI.org website, which led to a place where you can download the study if you put in an email. Fun. Easy to find. Here it is. The report itself is... OK. I don't know how big or representative the sample is, and response rate sucks out loud, but in its entirety it hits some real points without embarrassing itself at all.

wrapping the Plague and work disruption up into 'remote work' (i.e. 'forced remote work', 'sick with COVID remote work', etc.) makes this categorically difficult.

people with anxiety and depression may - OBVIOUSLY - be self-selecting for remote / hybrid roles!

income is a BIG covariate!

the previous research is irretrievably mixed

coarsely speaking, pre- and post-Plague remote work studies seem to be categorically different etc.

This is why you need a whole report for complicated issues! 

Alright, next link. It's to some goofy-arsed blog from an education institute that uses so many buzzwords I still don't know what they do after reading the About page. Top reference. The content is far from controversial: exhaustion and stress reduce creativity, etc. etc. There's some neurobabble and some poorly described studies, and the advice - as always - is canonical Oprah bullshit like Plant A Tree, or Harass a Squirrel. So, it's not evidence, but it's not untenable or problematic - it's just from the Little Golden Book version of managing people, where poorly-defined 'creativity' at work matters and the happiness of people in the real world doesn't. 

Let's get to something meatier: "Last year, Dutch researchers found a statistically significant decrease in cognitive performance when a chess player competes online versus offline". This is really interesting, because chess is a real cognitively-demanding task, there is real money involved, and using chess engines, you can very precisely define the quality of moves and you have 100Ks to measure! I smell a valid observation coming up! Now here's something interesting: a lot of the effect was driven by a tournament (the 'Magnus Carlsen Invitational') which was held in 18th April to 3rd May, 2020. Now that might be something of a confounding effect! This study, of course, conducted by people who aren't fools, goes RIGHT FOR this explanation and others. There obviously IS a remote play decrement, and it's some combination of (a) a change in environment (b) chess tournaments are MORE controlled than home environments (your neighbour cannot be blasting the Nicki Minajes, and your kids will not pull your hair at a tournament) (c) preparation strategies might be non-optimized for online play, etc. This is a really good study, which says NOTHING ABOUT THE INTRINSIC QUALITIES OF REMOTE WORK. 

I'm going to stop because this is eating my morning. Also, because I think I've made my point. All of these high-handed pieces about remote work being crushing, miserable, isolating, and dangerous are liberally saturate with this very weak attitude to evidence. My sincere opinion is that this area is full of vested interests who have a narrative that is valuable to them, and they will tell it. Very loudly. And on both sides. 

If there's one thing I don't see often, it's that a lot of managers have not put in the work to understand the dynamics of remote interaction. They want proximity effects to make 'productivity' better because they don't want to do the work of figuring out how to connect with people in digital space. They'd rather you commute and be miserable. People have been starting and running hyper-effective, high-trust 100% online companies for YEARS, and I've met the people who manage these companies, and without a single exception they're people who can manage empathy AND accountability over the internet. They don't whine about 'lost productivity', they build systems (and then update/maintain them) that allow the constraint to work for them. I'm editorialising here, but it's frustrating to see all the 'news' about this which is a parody of evidence-driven at best and never acknowledges that a lot of people who manage people suck out loud at it, and they threw their hands up at the complication of not having social control to maintain, and wanted to Go Back To How It Was without having to learn anything or be decent to their people. 

Update: few vibes from around the way. "Who are you to be saying this?" Google me. You'll figure it out. "There's a planned media narrative around this!" Maybe. I'll look into it. "My experience is XYZ" Read what you wrote, appreciate it. You know you, so I believe you.