Social media may affect work performance, reveals new study

A new study has revealed that personal use of social media by the employees during office harms the well-being of organisations.

The survey that specifically assessed the use of social network sites for personal purposes during working hours, and whether such use is related to self-reported work performance – controlling for basic demographic, personality, and work-related variables found that this type of distraction has a negative effect on self-reported work performance.

However, the researchers said that the effects may be regarded as slight enought to irrelevant, with no practical importance.

The data showed that at least as self-reported workers productivity goes, that these fears are incorrect, but it is too soon to conclude that these effects are negligible, given the interests of the various stakeholders in an organisation.  Whether or not the small explained variance might amount to significant accumulated economic loss over time, and across many employees, is thus a question open for further empirical study. Whether the true performance cost is represented by these self-reports is also not known.

The results also don't rule that use of online social network sites for personal purposes actually stimulates creativity and inspires some workers and use of online social network sites aids performance, particularly if workers are interacting with their co-workers through these sites.