A study of 11,000 Norwegian employees has led researchers to the conclusion that allowing people to play with personal social media at work can be detrimental to business.
The University of Bergen’s Cecile Schou Andreassen and her colleagues concluded that using personal social media during working hours impairs employees’ performance. “This type of distraction has a negative effect on self reported work performance,” she said.
However, the researchers cannot rule out that some workers can benefit from using their own social networking to stimulate creativity and inspire some people.
She said: “Employers typically fear financial loss due to employees cyber loafing.” It is the first study of its kind she said, and further research is needed.
Earlier this year the same university showed that policies prohibiting the personal use of social networking at work could benefit businesses.
The 11,000 people studied included 811 top execs, 1,821 middle managers, 2,764 other people with leadership roles, 5,622 work proles. The median age of the participants was 35.4 years.
