Technology is good to an extent

   I believe that the purpose of all technology is to improve society as a whole. Technology is supposed to make it easier for human beings to live, work and perform job tasks, faster and more effectively in different ways. Even though technology is supposed to be helpful, social media is creating a barrier to work efficiency, because employees are becoming more distracted by the news and the conversations of everyday life. This is decreasing the work quality of employees in companies around the world. This study by Naheed Asharaf and Tasawar Javed “The Impact of Social Networking on Employees’ Performance” finds that social media has a negative impact on employee skills, motivation levels, knowledge and qualifications, and productivity. Out of all these categories, social media only had a significantly negative impact on motivation and knowledge. This shows that even though productivity is not hindered by social media, employees lack the motivation and knowledge needed for the tasks they are supposed to complete, which leads to an overall decrease in the quality of the work. (Asharaf and Javed, 2014). There is often a focus on productivity of workers, but people should focus more on the quality of the work.

 There are many implications of social media on work quality. This study supported my initial prediction that social media interferes with the quality of work, but contrary to my hypothesis, it demonstrated that productivity would not significantly decrease due to the use of social media. However, if employees are not motivated and do not have the knowledge to complete the task, they cannot be considered productive workers. Even if the quantity of the tasks completed is the same, and employees complete necessary tasks by the appointed deadline, if the quality of the work does not meet professional standards, then this is just wasted effort. Therefore, the present study focuses on work quality because, as young professionals, people need to learn how to be not just productive, but to live by professional standards that truly improve company efficiency.

There are not many longitudinal studies done on the use of social media. However an experiment by Toronto N. Sadat Sharma, Jeffery Nichols and Jilin Chen, all at IBM Research Alma den, “Social Media Participation and Performance at Work” was longitudinal research testing whether or not there is any impact on work performance through the use of internal social media applications such as Facebook Instagram The sample size was just over 75,000 employees for the period of two years from 2010 – 2012. In this study the extent of contributions to status updates, community forum posts and blogs was correlated to performance evaluations. (Sharmi, N. Sadat , Jeffery Nichols, and Jinin Clhenin. 2014)

The researchers found that the use of social media is positively associated with work performance and productivity. However, the authors emphasize that even though there is a positive correlation between the use of social media and work efficiency, this fact alone does not mean that social media contributions results in improved performance. Thus .it is more important to acknowledge the fact that the study does show conclusively that increased social media use does not result in decreased performance. On the other hand, the authors suggest that organizations that are hesitant about social media should see the results of the study as a reason to encourage employees to adopt social media. Although there have been many studies on the effects of social media, there needs to be more research on how social media effects the overall quality of work. 

Based on the findings of these studies the use of social media does not significantly affect productivity; however my study will focus on work quality. As opposed to the amount of completed tasks, this study will focus on how well tasks are completed with an emphasis on detail, motivation, and work ethic.















 Works cited

Asharaf, N., & Javed, T. (2014). The Impac of Social Networking on Employee Performance. Business Management and Strategy, 5(2), 316-322. Retrieved February 17, 2017.


Sharmi, N. Sadat , Jeffery Nichols, and Jinin Clhenin. "The impact of social media on employee performance – a study by IBM Research." Intranet Focus Ltd., 27 May 2014. Web. 21 F

eb. 2017.


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