Is Facebook & Twitter a Waste of Everybody's Time Or Could Companies Perhaps Benefit From It?

It is becoming an obsessive trend amongst someWorkers were shown to take small web-surfing
companies to close people's access to Facebook at"treats" between these mini-tasks. That enabled the
work. It is true that people spend a lot of time onmind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net
Facebook or Twitter while they are at work andconcentration and increased productivity.
thus while they are supposed to be doing somethingWork breaks are not a new thing. Smokers today
else - work. But is it all bad?need longer breaks every hour now that they need
From the companies perspective there cannot be ato go out for a smoke.
good argument for "Facebook time" while people areSo why not just let them relax a little and go online,
supposed to be working. The current statistics showfor fun?
that traffic on Facebook during work hours isThe bad news is that most of the companies'
enormous. So the social media giant is attracting a lotcustomers are probably on Facebook and Twitter as
of people socializing while working. Can this go hand inwell. So any talk about the company is going on - the
hand? According to some companies in the financialcompany is simply selecting to ignore the discussion
industry, it cannot. The management team of somethat is taking place about the company's products
companies in the financial sector is so annoyed byand services in these media. Ignoring this "talk" can
their Facebook visiting workers that they havebe dangerous to the image of that company.
decided to completely close access to FacebookLet's take for example Icelandair. During the eruption
from work.of Eyjafjallajokull, most air traffic stood still over
But is it true, that people are wasting time onEurope. People were not getting to the places they
Facebook? It is true that a lot of people go onlinewanted to go to. Some blamed the airline companies,
and go on Facebook. It is also true that it is perhapsairing their anger on Twitter. Icelandair was monitoring
not directly a work related activity per se. Postingthe discussions that involved its name. That way
about what you are having for lunch or how hardthey could correct any misunderstandings that were
your work-out was this morning at the gym, is hardlybeing stated.
contributing to what we would call "work". But shouldBut another remarkable thing happened as well.
companies be concerned with this?Happy customers of Icelandair were also taking part
Some are obviously concerned that time is beingin the discussion correcting anything the appeared to
wasted. However, studies have shown that peoplebe wrongful statements, according to their own
who use social media such as Facebook and Twitterexperience. All this was very positive for Icelandair,
while at work tend to more productive. A studywho stood to lose a great deal of customers, money
carried out at the University of Melbourne discoveredand not to mention damages to its image. Their
that people using the web for personal surfing getTwitter service was excellent during the eruption.
more work done than those who do not. The studyThey usually launched updates on Twitter and
was carried out by Dr Brent Coker:Facebook offering people who were online a more
"People who do surf the internet for fun at work -direct and personal communication.
within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of theirSo not only is it wrong that people wasting time on
total time in the office - are more productive byFacebook is bad for the company, many companies
about 9% than those who don't."need to completely change their opinions on social
Dr Coker states that most projects, such as writingmedia in general and learn how they can benefit from
a report, consist of mini-tasks such as researchingit rather than ignoring it.
information, entering data, creating a graph, etc.