Costly babble of social networking chatter

By Admin | Published: November 5, 2009

Chatter on Facebook and Twitter is sending corporate moolah down the drain. A survey of 1,460 office workers in Britain showed that half of them visited social networking sites during office hours, spending an average of 40 minutes a week at these “productivity blackholes”, technology consulting firm Morse told BBC last week.

The damage: S$3.1 billion in lost work hours. Worse, the survey found that a third of workers posted sensitive information on these digital hangouts.

Chit-chat at these digital hangouts have grown tremendously over the past two years, but companies have not yet decided how to tap or curb the chatter. The prattle is likely to continue unless firms state clearly how and when these sites can be used.