Daily I read articles about the use of social media and related activities in the workplace, where employees are spending time on Twitter and Facebook feeds, online games, texting, personal emails, and Pinterest posts rather than working.  If you are on break or at lunch and want to view your Facebook and Twitter, play Candy Crush Saga or Words with Friends, 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.  If you were 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 their phones and tablets instead and play games and check their social media?  If you were 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?

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.  You either pay attention to your Twitter feed at a particular moment or you pay attention to what is going on in the meeting at that moment.  Distracted is distracted!  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.

Karen Silins is a multi-certified resume writer, career, business and personal branding coach working with individuals and small businesses.  After graduating with degrees in education and vocal performance, she made her own career transition into the Human Resources realm.  Karen left Human Resources to become an entrepreneur and help jobseekers and fellow entrepreneurs achieve their goals.  She keeps current regarding trends in the resume writing, coaching, HR, small business and marketing industries by working daily with individual clients on resume development and career coaching, consulting for small businesses in business plan development, marketing, hiring and overall HR processes, and providing 50-70+ seminars and workshops annually to a variety of organizations in the greater Kansas City area.  She can be reached via her website at www.careerandresume.com.