Shocking News: Scientists Say Workplace Social Networking Increases Productivity!
Can you believe that using social networking sites at work can increase your workplace productivity? A new study just published by Australian scientists found that taking time to visit websites of personal interest, including news sites and YouTube, provided workers a mental break that ultimately increased their ability to concentrate and was correlated with a 9% increase in total productivity.
Reporters are shocked by the findings. We're in shock that this is where the state of academic study is concerning social technology use vs. workplace filtering technology when it comes to productivity. A 9% increase in productivity? Try using these social technologies for on topic work and you'll see productivity increases that make 9% look like nothing.
The study was performed by researchers at Australia's University of Melbourne and coined the phrase "workplace Internet leisure browsing," or WILB. The activity helps keep the mind fresh and helps put you in a better place when you come back to working on topic, the scientists said.
"People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don't," said Dr Brent Coker, from the Melbourne Department of Management and Marketing. Got that? You can spend as much as 20% of your time at work dorking around on the internet and still end up 9% more productive than people who don't! Print this article and put it in your wallet for the next time you get in trouble for browsing on the job, eh?
In fact, this isn't an entirely worthless insight. We like to use StumbleUpon every once in a while just to run some cool water through the pathways of the brain associated with imagination.
Really, though, reading news feeds at work and using social networking sites (especially Twitter) can lead to so many multiples in productivity that any surprise over this 9% finding is hard to wrap our heads around.
On-demand access to geographically dispersed, topic-specific knowledge and feedback through both synchronous and asynchronous communication over multiple technology platforms is what social media use at work can be and that is a game changer. Could someone please study that?
What this study says to us is that the social web is so incredibly powerful that even people who don't know how to use it find themselves made 9% more productive because of it - on accident. Studying that seems like missing the point, though it is interesting.
Photo: Shock-ed by Flickr user CarbonNYC.
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Works for me, baby! Constant partial attention be damned.
You're totally right. That study could have done far more to show the productivity benefits and specialize knowledge gained from social media. In fact, because social media ROI will be forever hard to quantify in a traditional business sense, why are we still trying to?
We should do our own study, on the ROI of social CAPITAL. Wanna?
Hang on a sec -- what happened to this study (featured on RWW, no less!) which claimed that "information overload" is costing "$650 billion in wasted productivity".
And the same article says that "For social media addicts, which likely includes readers of this blog, the problem can be even worse".
Ugh. At the end of the day, you're either doing your job or you're not. Only your boss knows for sure. Unless he's Twittering his life away as well...
Marcello, there are a lot of writers at RWW - we must be having an academic paper fight! That study you are referring to was blogged about here http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/info_overload_the_problem.php by Sarah Perez. I will ask Sarah for a comment here on this post in response.
This kind of study ignores a huge confounding factor that's decades old by now. Knowledge workers are more productive when they avail themselves of more knowledge. People who use social networking (broadly defined) are likely to be professional workers who exchange information with their colleagues using whatever technologies are available to them. By that, I don't mean they are always dutifully working but that tweeps casually point one another to new tools and ideas that relate to their professions. That increases productivity. No mystery.
Collaboration must equal increased productivity... what a surprise.
Collaboration is the name of the game within the enterprise. Take a look at Socialcast when you have a minute. Socialcast offers enterprise environments a social networking tool to enhance productivity, share knowledge, exchange ideas, and break down communication barriers...and it is also allows individuals to integrate their favorite social sites such Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Facebook, Slideshare, Digg, LinkedIn, etc. Check it out for free @ www.socialcast.com.
Marcello (@Marshall): Well, the study you're referencing is nearly a year old now, so that's point one. But I think the main difference between that study & this one is that the Basex study was looking at wasted productivity due to info overload - in other words, how much time is wasted because of having to deal with too many emails, for example. The time it takes to delete, sort, and respond to emails cuts into a huge chunk of an information worker's day...and that leads to decreased productivity, and thus, decreased output.
This particular study is looking at something entirely different - it's saying some personal web surfing during the workday actually leads to increased productivity. I don't find that shocking at all - even before computers we knew that a break in workday was a healthy thing to take part in for productivity's sake. It's just that, these days, those breaks are often not a "chat around the watercooler" but rather a quick chat on Facebook instead. And those breaks are typically just a few minutes in length...as opposed to the hours on end of getting lost in email.
I don't find these studies in conflict at all - I feel like they're measuring completely different things.
Heh, heh, I just returned from the School of Engineering library at my local University (Auckland) and I saw that title on the cover of New Scientists in the new display area (for new weekly journals, books, etc...) and I thought that I must dig in to that article and see the methods the users adopted in their analysis. I have serious doubts about the usefulness of social networkings , where in my view it is time-wasting.
I have found the authors email contacts, and I am gonna request their data including their original paper, so that I can have a look.
It's good to see someone (Sarah) making a clear distinction between lost productivity (a la information overload) and productivity builders (such as taking a mental break).
I've read several of Basex's research reports on the subject and the impact that information overload brings to even a single mid-sized organization is huge. When you get to companies with >10.000 people (such as my employer), the costs go off the chart.
Basex has a free information overload calculator where one may calculate an organization's potential exposure for information overload. It's at http://www.iocalculator.com
Huh ... too bad most places still have these social networking sites filtered out.
I find it interesting that some people are more talkative online than in person. Maybe that is what leads to productivity from social networking. When people are able to break the communication barrier online first, they are more likely to follow up by in-person communication, leading to better offline relationships.
Collaboration must equal increased productivity :)
Hey it was interesting but I got so stuck with my favorite site that i forgot my work.
This does not surprise me social networking sites can do many things and when your happy it makes us work better.
I agree with you Rachel!
Todd DiRoberto
http://www.newsguide.us/art-entertainment/movies/Todd-DiRoberto-of-American-Satellite-Hosts-Independence-Day-Charity-Event-for-Operation-Bigs/
This is really a great idea I am surprised it's not in wider use already.
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