When Checking Your MySpace Makes You Late To A Meeting
Posted by anastasia on 05-04-2007I was at dinner last night with my Houston hosts, and we were talking about "Millennials" at work. One of the men at the table told a story of how he had to fire one of his young employees after a coworker complained that the employee just wasn't pulling his weight and spent a lot of time playing games on his computer. So the man at dinner told us how he checked the employee's computer and found several different game sites in his browser history.
Today, I read that Ontario has banned Facebook for its government employees because it's too much of a distraction. It's an interesting issue, and it seems like it kind of depends on what industry you work in. If your job is counting beans for the government, being able to surf the web periodically might keep you sane (or take time away from your productivity). If you work in media or in any field related to youth, you could argue that having access to all of these sites helps you do your job. You have to be able to watch the latest viral hit on YouTube and be where your audience is.
Having access to the internet while you're supposed to be concentrating on a task is a recipe for distraction. It's a great way to procrastinate and checking your email or MySpace messages definitely has an addictive quality to it. I think that's part of the reason why, according to Engadget, laptop programs are flopping in many schools. The bigger question is as adults, can we manage our own time effectively at work? If you get your job done and do it well, does it matter if you took a five minute break to watch a video on YouTube? Businesses certainly have the right to block anything on their employee computers for security reasons and productivity reasons. Will this generation's heavy use of social networking sites and other online distractions lead to more blockings and firings?
May 5th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
>>Will this generation's heavy use of social networking sites and other online distractions lead to more blockings and firings?""
We all know the answer to that. Hint: it is not "no"
Not only that, but once people take it as "a right" at work, you can't take it away from them easily. They'll install proxy servers and use all kind s of techniques to get to it, putting their job in danger. Such is the powerful allure of any drug.
I am sure many people will even consider leaving their job bearing this factor in mind. Dead end job with mySpace or dead end job without it? If given the choice…