The use of social media, personal apps, games, and email in the workplace has become commonplace. Instead of working, many employees are spending time on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or Facebook feeds, online games, texting, personal emails, rather than working. The cost to companies is steep in both time lost and worker productivity!
Remember, using your phone during work hours for personal stuff at work, and not on your break, will hurt your career. We think people won’t notice, especially our supervisors, but they do. I have clients tell me all the time about tracking the worst offenders use, either by sight, by video camera/CCTV, or because the employees are actually using company phones to play games and see social media feeds.
If you are on break or at lunch and want to view your social media, play Candy Crush Saga or Call of Duty, or view other personal social media and email, then do so. However, going through your social media or texting during a work meeting is unprofessional, playing a game while someone else is giving a presentation is rude, and any of the above while you are supposed to be working is cheating the company that you work for out of their money.
Consider the following two scenarios:
- You’re given the chance to present a product you created to the business owners on Shark Tank, attempting to gain their funding. Would you want them to pay attention to your presentation or to be on their phones instead, playing games and checking their social media?
- You’re a business owner paying your employees out of your own pocket. Would you expect your employees to actually do their work during business hours, or text and email friends and watch TikTok and YouTube videos?
You cannot offer your full attention to two things at once; no matter how much you want to multitask. The term multitask came from the computer industry, and a computer can actually multitask, but not a human. For a human it means you go from one task to another seamlessly, not perform two things simultaneously. You either pay attention to your TikTok or Twitter feed at a particular moment or you pay attention to what is going on in the meeting at that moment. Distracted is distracted! This is why texting and driving is so dangerous.
My advice on social media, texting, and all other personal technology use, is to use it sparingly in the workplace. Do your career a solid, and make sure while you are at work, work is your focus. Your workplace is watching!