Social Media in the workplace

“Face with one eyebrow raised” (aka the Colbert emoji) accurately depicts my feelings about social media in the workplace. It conveys the sense of skepticism and disapproval of their place in such environment, and -quite honestly- it is such a good emoji that can be used in any scenario.

I was interning at a government institution shortly after college doing economic research, and our firewall prevented accessing any social media. Although it also blocked personal email sites -such as Gmail- and it came with a few annoyances, I was glad about these restrictions. They forced me to focus on my work and be more efficient, leaving any personal emails and Facebook activity for after work. There were times when this increased efficiency resulted in finishing my work earlier, and instead of checking out Facebook (like i would have done if it was possible) I did additional research on topics that interested me.

My colleagues, on the other hand, complained about not being able to access social media sites. This was the day when MySpace, Classmates and Hi5 were on par with Facebook, so many of them checked more than one site. I am fairly confident that everyone’s efficiency would have declined if we all had access to social media during office hours. In fact, I am trying to change my habit of opening Facebook first thing in the morning, as I know that I will spend at least 30 minutes reading articles that people post. Hence my skepticism and disapproval to social media in the workplace, best exemplified by the Colbert emoji.