Ban Facebook from the workplace

From: puthut yulianto

Soon we'll have to stop mobile phone use...
during working hours,
in the office.

>
> From: mediacare <mediacare@cbn.net.id>
> Subject: [media-jakarta] Ban Facebook from the workplace
> To: "mediacare yahoogroups" <mediacare@yahoogroups.com>, "media-jakarta" <media-jakarta@yahoogroups.com>, blogger-indonesia@yahoogroups.com, "naratamatv" <NaratamaTV@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 1:31 PM
>
>  
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> THEO PAPHITIS: Why ALL bosses should copy me and ban Facebook from the workplace
>
> By Theo Paphitis
> Last updated at 10:26 AM on 02nd September 2009
>
> Comments (166)
> Add to My Stories
>
> The internet has heralded a revolution in our society. It has transformed the way we do business, entertain, communicate and travel. In many ways, the change has been positive. The web has brought new freedoms, spurred economic growth and extended the boundaries of knowledge.
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> In my own sector, particularly in my role as chairman of Ryman, the stationery company, I have seen how the internet has created dramatic new opportunities in everything from marketing to distribution.
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> But, as with all revolutions, there is a downside. No major technological change has ever been instituted by mankind without an array of negative consequences. The motor car has meant liberation for millions, but it has also caused congestion, environmental damage and a disturbing death toll on the roads.
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> Downside to the internet: Dragon's Den judge Theo Paphitis says businesses pay as websites like Facebook and Twitter encourage their staff to waste time
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> The internet is the same. The explosion in online activity has resulted in an orgy of self-indulgence and exhibitionism.
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> Businesses might have been helped by the ability to promote themselves on the internet, but they have also been hit by the web's encouragement of time-wasting by their staff.
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> The great virtue of the web, its ease of communication, has also become its Achilles' heel, in that it has polluted the air with meaningless babble and egomaniacal drivel.
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> Andy Warhol, the Sixties' American icon of pop art, once remarked that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.
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> The truth of his idiom has now been realised through websites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Bebo, in which participants are led to believe that the whole world wants to hear about their every move, from buying a new pair of shoes to dressing in the morning. Narcissism has become rampant, as users wallow in the minutiae of their own banal narratives.
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> None of this would really matter if it were confined to the home. But the worrying development of our times is that this binge of shallow introspection has now infected the workplace, with employees spending huge amounts of their office time on social networking websites.
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> The problem was graphically highlighted this week by the decision of Portsmouth City Council to ban their staff from using Facebook after it was discovered that municipal workers were logging onto the site up to 270,000 times a month. During the past year, it has been estimated that Portsmouth City Hall employees have spent an average of 413 hours a month on Facebook.
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> 'The internet has resulted in an orgy of exhibitionism'
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> This is a phenomenal amount of time to be frittering away on an essentially unproductive activity completely unrelated to work or the needs of the city of Portsmouth.
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> Not only does the cost of this online enthusiasm have to be borne by the council taxpayers, both through broadband bills and electricity usage, but also the endless visits to Facebook are a severe distraction from genuine staff duties.
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> And that exposes one of the other negative features of so much online communication: it is hopelessly addictive. Regular users of the social networking sites are like smokers in that they just have to get their latest fix. They cannot leave a message unanswered, or a photo unseen.
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> So great is their addiction that the desire to connect with their online friends over-rides even the requirements of their job descriptions.
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>  
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> Should workers be banned from using Facebook?
>
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>
> Well, we have banned smoking in the office because it is bad for health and undermines the focus on work. All employers should be doing the same with frivolous networking on the net.
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> After all, no self-respecting boss would allow staff to spend all day talking to friends over the phone, reading out clips from celebrity magazines, or passing on gossip.
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> Furthermore, the internet can breed a nasty sense of arrogance, as in the recent case of the office worker who posted a rant on the social site Digg, in which she said, 'I hate my job' and called her boss a 'total pervert'.
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> Unfortunately, the woman forgot that she had named her boss as a friend on the site, allowing him to see her tirade. No surprise then, that he told her - appropriately, via an online message - 'Don't bother coming in tomorrow'.
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> I can only applaud Portsmouth Council for taking the step of closing down access to Facebook.
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> At Ryman, we had to knock this problem on the head about a year ago, when it became obvious that too much staff time was being eaten up by this nonsense.
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> We did not actually impose a draconian outright ban on certain sites like Facebook or My Space. Instead, we adopted a policy of limited internet access, whereby employees were only able to visit certain sites which could be justified as useful for their work - such as business information or news services.
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> At a stroke, the creeping march of time-wasting came to a halt.
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> Should be banned? All employers should scrap frivolous networking on the net, says Theo Paphitis
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> I do not want to appear like some modern Mr Gradgrind, the Dickensian schoolmaster who despised all forms of fun. Indeed, I am a user of Facebook myself. But I think that this online activity is best kept to free time at home.
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> Nor do I have the slightest objection to amusement in the office. As an entrepreneur, I have always believed that enjoyment of the job has to be one of the key motivations for turning up to work. No sane human can concentrate all the time. People need breaks, friendship and laughter - and the workplace can provide all of them.
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> But employees also turn up to make money for themselves and for the company. Sadly, the addictive, all-consuming nature of online connections means that the worst internet offenders are reneging on their part of the bargain.
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> It is particularly irresponsible to indulge in such behaviour at this time of recession, when so many companies are fighting for survival and major public sector organisations know that budget cuts are inevitable because of soaring levels of public debt.
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> If employees knew that all their online activity was being monitored by their bosses, it is unlikely that they would feel so relaxed about spending hours on Facebook, especially in a climate of redundancies.
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> But such monitoring would cost a fortune, for a permanent investigator would have to be employed. It is far better - and cheaper - just to restrict access.
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> 'Soon we'll have to stop mobile phone use'
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> The great paradox of the internet is that though it is meant to be a tool of communication, it has undermined dialogue in so many ways. I have never ceased to be amazed at the way people will email each other, even though their desks are only a few yards away.
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> Similarly, I am growing fed up with the frequent resort to text messaging, when a simple phone call would be quicker and more productive. And so much of the language of texting just seems gibberish, destroying the beauty of our great English vernacular and promoting verbal ignorance.
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> Technological progress has brought linguistic regression.
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> Nor are all online relationships uplifting. Before the advent of the internet, idiots, sadists, deviants and extremists were largely constrained by the moral boundaries of civilised society. Now they can tap into an online world of fellow lunatics. Tragically, in the new technological universe, there is someone out there for everyone - even a German cannibal.
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> The internet wasters will always try to stay one step ahead. The next big technological development is already underway, in the transfer of online activity from computers to mobile phones.
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> In that case, restrictions on usage of workplace computers will not work on their own. So employers will have to be even tougher in future, instituting bans on the use of mobiles during working hours.
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> But that is only fair. In the end, businesses and public services cannot survive if staff prefer to be socialising onl