Social Machinery

Facebook is becoming a productivity nightmare for employers at companies in India, as employees have started spending too much time on the biggest social networking site. A new survey revealed that it is beginning to affect efficiency at work.  

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry have found in their researcg that employees on average spend an hour a day on sites like Facebook, resulting in a loss of productivity measuring 12.5%. The study claimed that close to 12.5% of productivity of employees in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office 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,” the BBC News quoted Assocham secretary general DS Rawat as saying.

As part of the study, a total of 4,000 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 of office employees accessed Facebook during work time. Moreover, 40% workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at office. Also, 83% of the employees think there is no harm surfing at work during office hours.

The survey also says that 84% of respondents in India’s major cities show signs of internet addiction – they do not take breaks at appropriate times, they spend more than a “normal” amount of time online, and can get irritable if they are interrupted while surfing.

Read more: BBC