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April 2, 2009

Twitter, Facebook can improve work productivity

Web use makes workers 9% more productive

Carrie-Ann Skinner

Using Twitter and Facebook at work will make you a better employee, says the University of Melbourne.

According to a study by the Australian University, 70 percent of office employees use the internet at work for personal reasons, and are "more productive by about nine percent than those who don't".

"Workplace internet leisure browsing (WILB) can help sharpen workers' concentration," said Brent Coker, from the University's department of management and marketing. "People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration."

Coker defined WLIB activities as browsing the web for information and reviews of products, reading online news sites, playing online games, keeping up-to-date with friends activities on social networking sites and watching videos on YouTube.

"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased productivity," he added.

"Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online under the pretence that it costs millions in lost productivity That's not always the case."

Cooker said the study reflected people who browsed the web of 20 percent or less of their working day.

"Those who behave with internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without," he added.

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Comments received

Mark "The Red" said on Thursday, 02 April 2009

An odd article, with lots of bad math...So it's actually 6% of the people who "improve" (9% of 70%), with no figure of how many people have "Internet addiction"...So the overall figure might actually be *less* for the sample as a whole than if they didn't use the Internet.

Which means all this article *really* does is cloud the issue.

Hmm.

www.RedsDeal.com

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