Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- With Mafia Wars, Farmville and "getting to know you" quizzes, the social network site Facebook can be a major waste of time. So, should employers prevent people from using it at work?
Answer this question honestly: Do you log on to Facebook at work? (I plead the fifth, by the way.)
Some people tell KSL Newsradio they limit their use at work. One man says, "In a week, maybe an hour." One woman near the Gateway says, "Fifteen minutes a day. I check it in the morning."
Coming Up
The Doug Wright Show
11 a.m. on KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM: While the primary purpose of Facebook was to keep in touch, Doug Wright gets squirted, poked and asked to answer ridiculous polls. Technology intended to make life more simple may now just be a waste of everyone's time.For others, the social networking site may be a very serious distraction. One man admitted, "At work, [I log on] probably two to three hours a day."
So, should employers prohibit employees from using the site? Some management consultants say, "Not necessarily."
M. Douglas Brough Consulting CEO Marvin Brough said, "They need to draw a fine line, if they're going to allow it at all, to the extent where most of the time it would be used in a way that it would benefit the company."
Brough says blocking Facebook would be like getting rid of a marketing tool which could give your company a few free mentions to hundreds of people online. But, employers shouldn't be afraid of telling workers they will block it if workers abuse the privilege.
"That would be a normal procedure to do, saying, ‘It's being abused, we're going to have to stop it.' You may have to even do that company-wide," he said.
Brough says companies do need to set limits on how much time employees can spend on the site. He says 15 minutes a day is a good example.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
