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Mainstream, Vol XLVIII, No 19, May 1, 2010

Social Networking: Affecting Productivity in India

Saturday 1 May 2010, by Mithun Dey

#socialtags

Facebook is becoming a problem for employers at offices in India, as employees have started spending so much time on the social networking site that it is beginning to affect productivity, a new survey has revealed. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) have found in their survey that office staffs on average spend an hour a day on sites like Facebook, resulting in a loss of productivity measuring 12.5 per cent.

The study noted: “Close to 12.5 per cent of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during office hours.” Apparently, the workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for romancing or otherwise derive some satisfaction out of it and with this average corporate employee’s daily working is reduced by an hour from eight hours to seven hours.

As a matter of fact, the growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use.

As part of the study, a total of 4000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 from different cities in India including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Kanpur were questioned.

It was observed that nearly half the office employees accessed Facebook during work time. Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at office. And also 83 per cent of the employees think there is no harm surfing at work during office hours. It has also been noticed that the social networking site Facebook has become a headache for the employers at the offices in India, as the employees spend a substantial part of the office timing on the social networking sites. This has badly hit the productivity of these firms.

The survey further revealed that 50 per cent of the employees particularly access Facebook during work time and four out of every 10 employees come to know about these social networking sites at office, while 83 per cent of the employees said that they don’t see any harm in using these sites at work. However, 40 per cent employees informed that they are permitted to surf the social networking site at work by the employers.

Young professionals join the social networking sites the most. It also reveals that 93 per cent of youngsters are aware of social networking sites. Orkut and Facebook are found to be the most popular online destinations among survey respondents. Keeping in touch with friends and family for fun and looking for new jobs are some of the main factors which attract the workers to social networking sites. Seventythree per cent, aged 45-58, spend over an hour online daily to use online sources to access news.

Moreover, Assocham used word “Romancing” as reason for social networking surfing. Unaware of the fact that online activities such as online news reading through live feeds as in facebook, twitter etc., professional networking and job hunting through these pro-networking sites and blogging are rising in India; so there is more than just one reason of “romancing” on social networking sites.

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Social networking is growing steadily in India. In the year 2008 there 51 per cent growth in social networking with the top players being—Orkut, Facebook and the only Indian net-
working portal among the top three is Bharat Students.com.

In the year of 2008 a load of other social networks saw an incredible growth in traffic in terms of unique visitors, the top being—Facebook, Hi5 and MySpace sites. However, Orkut remained the favourite in India. The comScore report also predicted that social networking in India will continue to provide space for other players as well provided they have the right blend of both a strong brand and cultural relevance.

Noticeably, the Indian players in the list have to do some act of redemption or simply rework their portals as is apparent in the fact that social networks made in India, such as ibibo.com, BigAdda.com, are having a negative influence on the visitors’ attention and, in my view, creating hype more than what one possesses; this will do nothing but annoy the users. The differences in a majority of Indian startups are very much visible, though I am reluctant to discuss it because in the comments of IndianWeb2.com a lot of people have been slighted.

Four in 10 employees built their social profiles from their office. Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, which are the most famous social networks, are seen as passports to get better paying jobs nowadays and better still as a ‘land for romancing’. The usages could be even higher than the recruitment portal surfed during office hours.

This new genre of social game is called “asynchronous” or “appointment” game and allows people to play with their friends without having to be online at the same time. The low-intensity engagement has made games such as Farmville, Cafe World, Restaurant City, Pet Society, and Happy Aquarium developed by firms Zynga, Playfish, Crowdstar and Slashkey popular among employees who often log on during office hours.

But now what we are seeing is that more and more people and organisations are recognising that productivity suffers as a consequence; hence probably more Chief Information Officers are blocking the Facebook applications.

In September 2009, Portsmouth City Council in southern England banned the staff from accessing Facebook on its computers after it was revealed they spent an average of 400 hours on the site every month. The move was expected to stop the “waste of public cash”.

Quite an interesting study. Surely there should be a restriction on the amount of use rather than these sites being totally blocked. Because nowa-days people are very much addicted to these sites. These employees should be dealt with in the same way as companies deal with smokers. I am sure they give them time to smoke for a while outside the office and get back to work. Perhaps the offices should use this addiction as an incentive, something like one finishes his or her work early and then surfs social networking sites for the remaining time.

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