Apparently researchers in China tell us that using Facebook at work can be instrumental in boosting creativity.
A team of researchers in China has published a theoretical paper that draws attention to the use of social media at work as a means of self-therapy when young workers end up in jobs that aren’t right for them.
The theory is that students are led to believe that there are great rewarding jobs out there for them when the finish college – the reality for most is at the other end of the scale. To cope with this young people of today often turn to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Snapshat to help alleviate the stress they feel.
Do you think you or your staff would feel less stress in their job in the were using Facebook at work?
The research indicates that this may not be such a bad thing, in fact spending small amounts of time on Facebook or your preferred social media site can actually increase creativity – getting the balance right is the key.
Jhony Ng, one of the authors of the paper and a professor at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says he can’t quite define that threshold, but he knows it when he sees it.
“The line should be at where one’s non-work-related social media use does not affect their job performance,” Ng told The Huffington Post in an email.
In other words, if you spend some downtime on Twitter in between projects, it’s probably good for you. If you spend all afternoon on Facebook instead of finishing something your boss asked you to do, that’s probably bad.
In an unscientific Twitter poll conducted by this reporter, who was definitely not using social media to slack off, nearly half of the 2,028 respondents said they use social sites to cope with their jobs. Nearly one-quarter say they do not. Another 31 percent do not take Twitter polls seriously, judging by their response of “lol.”
Read more of this Huffington Post article here