In today’s world, many people constantly use social networks, which affects the change in business and its strategies. First, the companies themselves pay attention to their media and Internet presence. Secondly, company employees have constant access to social networks, which encourages them to develop addiction (Priyadarshini et al., 2020). The impact of social media on workers and their productivity is a complex issue, as both positive and negative effects can be seen. On the one hand, social networks allow people to create a stable and vast network of contacts, which enables them to develop their business faster, having access to the necessary resources, including human ones. In addition, the Internet creates a platform for communication between the client and the firm, making companies more flexible and, therefore, more sustainable.
However, avoiding the wide range of adverse effects of social networks, especially those associated with a decrease in workers’ productivity, is impossible. For instance, social media has diminished thoughtfulness and comprehension among employees. People spend so much time online that they cannot comprehend the feelings of others. Social media has created a universe where norms differ from the actual world, and as a result, it has destroyed thoughtfulness. Social media fosters laziness because reaching a friend or coworker is as simple as clicking a button (Zivnuska et al., 2019). It makes life so convenient and straightforward that it encourages lethargy among its users.
The steamy influence of social networks on employees’ productivity cannot but excite businesses; therefore, this topic is relevant for the study. Workers using social media tend to spend less time on work, complete fewer tasks, and be less focused and creative (Wu et al., 2018). Nevertheless, companies are doomed to use the Internet, mail, and instant messengers in their work, which provides employees with access to social networks (Priyadarshini et al., 2020). Thus, this is a necessary evil that must be studied to determine the specific negative effects and their causes and understand how to minimize them.
As a result, all corporate institutions and those who work for them must focus on the importance of social media in their daily operations. This study will focus on analyzing both the positive and negative effects of social media overuse on overall employee productivity. The hypothesis of this study is the assumption that the unlimited use of social networks at work leads to a drop in productivity among staff, and the positive effects of social networks do not minimize the negative ones.
For this study, systematic non-probability sampling is best suited, as the entire team of a firm that applies a policy of unrestricted use of social networks will be surveyed. It makes no sense to conduct a random sample since all employees of the company will be subject to the same set of rules (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). The most effective study would be to conduct a study on the example of a medium-sized business with a number of employees from 50 to 249. Thus, it will be possible to trace how social networks affect different types of employees occupying different positions in the company.
The activities of employees for a certain time (one quarter) will be monitored to test the research hypothesis. The company will have unlimited use of social networks for all workers, but only from work computers (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). To collect data, you will need software that monitors their activities on a computer and analyzes how much time they spend in different programs. Moreover, a performance review will be collected on the leading performance indicators for each position held at the beginning and end of the test period. In addition, opinion polls will be conducted, asking workers to evaluate their productivity, engagement, motivation, creativity, and performance (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). Such a multi-factorial approach will allow for assessing changes in unbiased statistics and the subjective perception of workers and the employer.
The following operational definitions will be used to collect data: time spent on social media, productive time, job performance, job satisfaction, motivation, creativity, and overall performance. Productive time is time spent in work programs or meetings. Time spent on social networks and at work will be collected through software that monitors work activity on computers. The degree of job satisfaction and motivation will be assessed subjectively by employees since these indicators affect productivity (Leftheriotis & Giannakos, 2014). The quality of the work and creativity will be evaluated for performance review according to the parameters on which the firm conducts this analysis. Overall performance will become a cumulative concept that includes all of the above indicators.
The hypothesis will be tested by collecting data from employees and interviewing their supervisors or colleagues about the work done. Then the time spent at work will be compared with the time spent on social networks, which will reveal the intervals in which workers were distracted by social networks. Alpha is a certain statistical threshold at which the probability of an event is so small that it does not matter when drawing conclusions (Pennsylvania State University, 2022). It means that the chance that an employee will not look at social networks at all or spend the whole day on them is less than 5% (Pennsylvania State University, 2022). In both cases, the chance of this is too low to affect the statistics and can be omitted when researching.
The P value is calculated from our hypothesized data and compared to the alpha to decide if the original hypothesis is true. I expect my P to be greater than alpha since that would mean that the initial hypothesis was correct (Pennsylvania State University, 2022). The proposed method is reliable since the change in the time spent on social networks and at work can be repeated in the conditions of any company. Furthermore, the questionnaires used to collect the remaining parameters will be attached to the study’s appendix, which will increase reliability. The collected data will be valid as the operational definitions, and their units will be defined. Debriefing of the research is already included in its structure in the form of interviews with staff about their feelings about the decrease or increase in the studied indicators.
This study is relevant and vital in the modern world since the use of social networks at work is an inevitable reality. Businesses are interested in studying the harmful effects of social media on worker productivity, as they can further identify problems and develop solutions, norms, rules, or restrictions on the use of social media. It is necessary to find out how employees use social networks, in what mode, for what purposes, and what the consequences are for their productivity, creativity and motivation. The experiment can show the objective and subjective effects of using social networks.
References
Leftheriotis, I., & Giannakos, M. N. (2014). Using social media for work: Losing your time or improving your work? Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 134-142.
Pennsylvania State University. (2022). Research Methods–LHR 312. Web.
Priyadarshini, C., Dubey, R. K., Kumar, Y. L. N., & Jha, R. R. (2020). Impact of a social media addiction on Employees’ wellbeing and work productivity. The Qualitative Report, 25(1), 181-196.
Wu, M., Yang, C., Wang, C., Zhao, J. L., Wu, S., & Liang, L. (2018). Distraction or connection? An investigation of social media use at work, in Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Zivnuska, S., Carlson, J. R., Carlson, D. S., Harris, R. B., & Harris, K. J. (2019). Social media addiction and social media reactions: The implications for job performance. The Journal of Social Psychology, 159(6), 746-760.