With over one billion people worldwide using social media, including 80 percent of employees using private sharing sites at work, members have been scrambling to insist that not only does it not negatively affect their work performance, but that it improves it. Yahtzee! probably wishes they could get the kind of free public relations Twitter gets.

Few studies have been done to examine the issue. Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Cecilie Schou Andreassen and colleagues at the University of Bergen looked at the consequences of the use of social media during working hours.

 The goal was to conduct a survey that specifically assessed the use of social network sites for personal purposes during working hours, and whether such use is related to self-reported work performance - controlling for basic demographic, personality, and work-related variables. 

Dr. Cecilie Schou Andreassen, psychologist at University of Bergen. Photo : Ole Kristian Olsen

Survey results showed that use of social media during working hours can impair performance at work and also harm the well-being of organizations.

The overall finding is that this type of distraction has a negative effect on self-reported work performance - though the effects may be regarded as slight enough to be irrelevant, with no practical importance.  Employers typically fear financial loss due to employees "cyber-loafing" so they will magnify the problem the same way proponents will  trot out opposing surveys showing that social media "stimulates creativity" and inspires some workers.