Here are five differences between offline and online conferences:

1. Participants’ attention: We all must have done one or two online meetings before, and we all can talk about how divided our attention was. Especially when we have online meetings at home, online conference participants struggle with maintaining their attention during the meetings. Although this also happens during offline conferences, it is less likely.
   
   
2. Multitasking: There is this illusion we all have when participating in an online conference on your computers or phone. We always feel we can do other stuff while listening to the event. There are so many things that can distract us. We could easily get notifications of messages from our social media; you can easily turn off your sound and discuss with someone else.
   
   So many things take your focus during an online class. Keeping attention is difficult, while we focus on doing other stuff at the same time, thinking we are saving time. In offline conferences, this is not common as the environment is stimulated to help you stay focused during the conference.

   All these happen in regions where there is good internet accessibility. Now imagine how often it will occur in regions with poorer internet accessibility.

   Once technical issues like these occur, the user would immediately use this as an excuse to do other activities like watching Netflix or go back to social media, etc. In contrast, in offline conferences, you don’t get this kind of technical limitation.

3. Budget: The budget for an offline conference meeting is higher than that of online conferences, but online conferences are also expensive if you want to do them the right way.

   Even with all these advantages and disadvantages, one thing we should know is that the online platform will always be available as far as the internet still exists.

   Looking at the recent series of lockdowns in different parts of the world. Online conferences still have a big advantage with accessibility as you can gain access to the conference from anywhere in the world. When implemented correctly, online conferences can feel and be more effective than offline conferences.

4. Technical limitation: Even with the advancement of digital technology, there are still many technical issues with the online conference. There is a lot of internet lagging that occurs, picture crumbling, slow connections, etc.