Is Social Media A Blessing Or A Curse In The Workplace?

Social media has a lot of positive impact on our lives and in recent years it has become an important method of marketing for companies and products. It’s easier than ever before to keep in contact with old friends and there’s never a day in which you can’t have a quick chat with someone who lives hundreds of miles away. This is all great, especially in a time where we’re all so busy and generally a bit more lonely than we’ve been in the past. Any way to make keeping in contact with people easier is an incredibly good thing!

Though there are certainly upsides to social media there are also profound down sides, especially when it comes to its use in the workplace. Never before have employers had the ability to spy on their employees to such an extent. A good proportion of employers said they’d used facebook to check up on potential new recruits before hiring them, a lot went on to say that what they saw on the site actually put them off offering a job to those individuals.

Once you’ve got a job social media can still cause you issues. Many have said that their privacy has been eroded by the use of social media as colleagues suddenly have access to all sorts of images of you. They might be left over from your glory days at University or simply be of the less flattering variety, regardless they can and do cause terrible embarrassment at work.

Many have simply removed their profiles or refused to add colleagues. It’s always worth remembering that you can alter your privacy setting on sites like Facebook to prevent anyone who isn’t your friend from snooping. This would be worth doing if you’re looking for a new job or simply don’t want the world and its Mum to know everything there is to know about you!

 

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