Workers Use Social Media Influences At Their Jobs for Various Reasons

by d.stratton

Social media influences and permeates many aspects of daily life for Americans today, and the workforce is no exception. These digital platforms offer the potential to enhance worker productivity by fostering connections with colleagues and resources around the globe. At the same time, employers might worry that employees are using these tools for non-work purposes while on the job or engaging in speech in public venues that might reflect poorly on their organization.

A Pew Research Center survey of 2,003 American adults (including 795 who are currently employed on a full- or part-time basis) conducted Sept. 11-14 and 18-21, 2014, finds that social media plays some role in the lives of many American workers – but that role is not always clear-cut or entirely positive.

Workers turn to social media for a range of reasons while at work, with taking a mental break being among the most common.

Today’s workers incorporate social media into a wide range of activities while on the job. Some of these activities are explicitly professional or job-related, while others are more personal in nature. The survey asked Americans who are employed full- or part-time about eight different ways they might use social media while on the job and found that:

  • 34% ever use social media while at work to take a mental break from their job
  • 27% to connect with friends and family while at work
  • 24% to make or support professional connections
  • 20% to get information that helps them solve problems at work
  • 17% to build or strengthen personal relationships with coworkers
  • 17% to learn about someone they work with
  • 12% to ask work-related questions of people outside their organization
  • 12% to ask such questions of people inside their organization

As noted above, 17% of workers say they use social media to build or strengthen personal relationships at work – but the transparency that social media facilitates comes with costs as well as benefits. Some 14% of workers have found information on social media that has improved their professional opinion of a colleague; at the same time, a similar share (16%) have found information on social media that has lowered their professional opinion of a colleague (Olmstead, K., Cliff, E., Nicole B., 2014)

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