Google Meet current tab indicator

The pandemic broke a lot of people’s brains. It’s weird how quickly 1) remote work and 2) multitasking almost constantly became. I remember in my early career working at an agency when there was no way you could do multiple things simultaneously during big company meetings, as laptops weren’t allowed, and it was just rude to have your phone out when someone was speaking. Oh, how the times have changed.

As someone who now remotely manages people, I have a different sensitivity and empathy for those agency owners. However, I trust my employees to focus on the right thing (sometimes that means multitasking).

This got me thinking about Google Meet. What if instead of just showing a camera off, you could see what tab someone was currently on and how many tabs they had open?

This would out multitaskers everywhere. The optimist in me wants to believe this would make it clear that a lot of meetings are a waste of people’s time, but in reality, it would probably be a forcing function for people to have cameras on during meetings without other tabs open. Ironic, as this would likely be a net negative for the companies trying to “enforce productivity”.

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