The Social Media Machine changing your Workplace?

Business and Social Media go together like white on rice. Although social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are very beneficial to businesses it also has it’s down sides. Privacy, Security, and harassment are all concerns when implementing Social media into a workplace environment for both the businesses and workers involved.

Many organizations use Social media both internally and externally within the company to engage in some form of business with others across the world, or use Social networking to keep employees up to speed on what’s going on within the company. Utilizing social media networks to conduct business throughout the world can simplify and even expand your current operations; however using social media internally within a company to communicate with employees could come with some complications.

An ongoing study titled Digital Work Life, conducted by AVG Technologies Digital Diaries project looks at cyber-bullying in the workplace. The study found that Cyber-Bullying is becoming an epidemic within the workplace and concluded that “More than half of adults (53 percent) that participated in our survey believe privacy in the workplace has been eroded with the proliferation of social media”. Although these numbers are staggering, I coincide with what AVG’s Senior Security Evangelist, Tony Anscombe says “This study highlights the need for a combination of greater education around social media alongside increased attention and care by both employees and employers to their social media etiquette at work.” Meaning that with the incorporation of social media into the workplace, additional measures such as educating employees about what constitutes appropriate/inappropriate ways of using social media is a necessary.

In this day and age belonging to a social media platform is an overall must-have for any serious enterprise or entrepreneur. I firmly believe that social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are essential tools for marketing products/services and connecting businesses with countless clients. When a company integrates with a social media platform many guidelines need to be established on employee conduct, this is for the benefit of the employee and the company. Tony Anscombe once said “Until everyone is clear about exactly what is and isn’t acceptable online behavior, trying to enforce policies will just fail, leaving the door open to cyber-bullying and invasion of privacy.” Nevertheless as an employer, it is your responsibility to educate your employee’s making sure they fully comprehend the expectations that have been set concerning Social Media usage in and outside of the workplace. As an employee are you in-tune with the expectations concerning social media set forth by your employer?

Sources:

Garner, James. “Workers Feel Social Media Is Eroding Workplace Privacy.” Web log post. Workers Feel Social Media Is Eroding Workplace Privacy. AVG Officia Blogs, Jan.-Feb. 2013. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.

AVG Technologies. “Social Media Stokes Workplace Privacy Fears.” Yahoo Finance. Finance.yahoo.com, 31 Jan. 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2013.

Collinson, Lauren. “Social Media and the Workplace – To Be or Not to Be?” The Business Monthly RSS. .bizmonthly.com, 4 Mar. 2011. Web. 6 Oct. 2013.

Technology Changing Social Interaction

“Technology Changing Social Interaction”

                                An excerpt from Jonathan Franzens upcoming book, The Kraus Project: Essays by Karl Kraus was published by The Guardian on Friday 13 September 2013. The very long excerpt is titled “What’s wrong With the Modern World” and focuses on how modern technology is changing the way social interaction occurs, and how it’s affecting  the younger generations for the worse.

         Using the Apple IPhone as an example, Franzen goes on to say “”It’s hard to get through a meal with friends without somebody reaching for an iPhone to retrieve the kind of fact it used to be the brain’s responsibility to remember”. Franzen’s arguing that with the development of new technology brings along a new era where people are becoming less intelligent, by relying on technology to remember things such as a close ones birthday. I was recently in New Orleans for a bachelor party, one night we all went out to a nice restaurant for dinner. After ordering our food, I placed the menu back down onto the table and when I looked up I found that everyone was staring into their laps using their smartphone instead of socializing. I demanded the phones be put away for the remainder of the meal and we carried on with normal conversation. Kraus jokes of a day when people can’t do something as simple as everyday mathematical functions; however in today’s society I don’t see this being farfetched. I am on the fence with this theory. Whether or not this is an immediate problem, I do agree that it has the potential to become a serious dilemma in the coming decades.

       The advancements in technology throughout the decades has undoubtedly schlepped along the foundation for society to accept the framework for a mindless generation. A generation influenced more by social networking in order to fill an interpretation of what the “global corporate system of control” considered “Cool”. With the invention of smartphones and the availability of them in the  21^st century,  giant corporations have developed, adapted, and merged, almost seamlessly intergrading themselves into your everyday life, collecting and encouraging you to share your personal information. The Data collecting goes beyond your personal interests, it dives as deep as tracking your location and locations around you, essentially spying on your every move. Franzen scowls from the thought of social media, insisting it’s nothing but a bunch of malarkey. Although I agree and disagree with what Franzen has to rant about he does make some valid points.

       With technology consistently changing, people are becoming ever more reliant on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media networking has had an impaction on every industry from law enforcement to educational facilities and then some. According to the article in mediabistro.com titled How Social Media Is Changing The World by Shea Bennett “684,487 Pieces of content are shared on Facebook every minute” this kind of data backs up what Franzen is talking about, and how the credibility of the published content is radically  unreliable. Social networking is making it easier for people to self-promote themselves on a scale never seen before; with a little bit of money you can virtually spread any type of content to millions of people instantly.

Sources

Bennett, Shea. “How Social Media Is Changing The World [INFOGRAPHIC].” – AllTwitter. Mediabistro, 25 June 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.

Jonathan Franzen: What’s Wrong with the Modern World.” The Guardian. The Gaurdian, 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

Bankoff, Caroline. “Jonathan Franzen Still Doesn’t Like the Internet.” Vulture. Vulture, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.