Background
Social media has become an important part of most individuals’ daily life regardless of age. It has changed people’s lives in diverse ways, ranging from being a crucial source of information to a platform that promotes social interactions. Companies have also embraced social media as an instrumental tool for engaging their customers and marketing their products and services. Therefore, it is common to find employees using social media in their workplaces. However, it is essential to evaluate the impacts of social media in workplaces. Thus, this paper explains the research topic, “Social media: A distraction in the workplace.”
Research Topic
The research topic to focus on is “Social media: A distraction in the workplace.” The topic hypothesizes that the use of social media in workplaces is a significant distraction that hurts individual and organizational productivity. As noted in the introduction, individuals and businesses have embraced social media. Any technology has its benefits and shortcomings, and so is social media. An investigation based on the research topic will seek to establish social media distracts workers from effectively executing their duties.
Significance of the Research Topic
The research topic is important to society since the general public will understand how excessive usage of social media can distract them from executing their everyday activities or actively participating in social events. For instance, social media can distract caregivers from attending to infants, jeopardizing their health and development. The topic is essential to an organization because it can help them design and implement stringent policies to ensure that employees use social media for only work-related purposes while in their workplaces. Equally, companies can use findings derived from researching the topic as basics for training their workers on how to use social media responsibly. The topic is vital to me since it will help me explore the way excessive use of social media can negatively impact my productivity at work and in daily life, and plan how to moderate usage of the technology.
Insufficiencies in Current Research about the Topic
Various studies have been conducted to investigate how social media adversely impacts employees’ productivity. However, current research on social media as a significant distractor in workplaces has some limitations that necessitate further study on the topic. For instance, Herlle and Astray (n.d.) reviewed the literature on the impact of social media in workplaces. Although the research provided recommendations on how to control social media usage in workplaces, it was too broad, focusing on both the negative and positive impacts of the technology. Leftheriotis and Giannakos (2014) investigated whether the use of social media for work improves productivity or wastes workers’ time in the insurance industry. The findings of the research cannot generalize the focus narrowed to one particular industry. The recent study by (Priyadarshini, Dubey, Kumar, and Jha (2020) also failed to capture the impacts of excessive use of social media on employees across diverse sectors. Therefore, research on how social media is a distractor in workplaces, focusing on different sectors or industries can give generalized findings and recommendations.
How I Would Go about Studying the Topic
I would research the topic by focusing on different industries. The hypothesis “social media is a distractor in workplaces” would guide my study. I would correct data through observation and questionnaires that target workers and their supervisors. I would use a tracker mounted on the employees’ devices to observe how much time they spend on social media doing other things besides work-related activities. The questionnaires would ask the respondents to indicate the frequency at which they check their social media accounts and the time they spend on the platforms during working hours. I would ask them to indicate how much they believe social media distracts them from working and hurts their productivity. I would then analyze the data get findings and make conclusions.
References
Herlle, M., & Astray, V. The impact of social media in the workplace [Ebook] (pp. 67-73). Florida International University, USA.
Leftheriotis, I., & Giannakos, M. (2014). Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work? Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 134-142. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.016
Priyadarshini, C., Dubey, R., Kumar, Y., & Jha, R. (2020). Impact of social media addiction on employees’ wellbeing and work productivity. The Qualitative Report, 25(1), 181-196. doi: 10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4099