A recent survey by harmon.ie found that employees blow over $10,375 of productivity through social media each year. 60% of these distractions stem from social networking sites, texting, and instant messaging. Respondents admit that they put off work to check Facebook or to respond to a text every 15 minutes. The irony according to harmon.ie co-founder Yaacov Cohen is that these tools were created to save time and improve efficiency, but they have proven to do just the opposite.
My experience with students in Club Richter tells me that young people run into the same problem with social media distractions. The ratio of those who actually study to those who, instead, update their statuses every fifteen minutes about how they should probably log off and get to work is one-to-one. The worst part is that those slackers take up all the good seats! I almost had the mind one day to tell one of them off, but I quickly changed my mind once I noticed what was on the screen.
The guy had a page open called “Super Secret Study Group!” Apparently, he organized a group to help his classmates prepare for an upcoming midterm. The group had study guides, links to relevant articles, and even a discussion about possible questions. He also had a live conversation open where the group members fired off questions and some occasional side chatter. This near altercation led me to take a closer look at what everyone was really up to.
It seems students use social media more as a way to organize, mobilize, and communicate with each other. A friend of mine used chat to get a hold of his girlfriend so that she could forward him a presentation that he left at home. Another group cycled through a few Occupy pages to help get ideas for the group he wanted to organize here on campus. Some other kid perused his Twitter feed to look for articles to write about for his homework.
This begs the question: should corporations be more aggressive with their social media use policies, or does the benefit outweigh the possible distraction?
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