Facebook is good for productivity
Now you can get away with cruising around Facebook at work, even when your boss is peering over your shoulder. Well, as long as the boss doesn’t look too closely.
Even the laziest slacker can look busy in a jiffy with this interactive adaptation of many of Facebook’s functions. Simply go to HardlyWork.in, click “Gimme Dem Spreadsheets,” enter your Facebook credentials, and there’s your Facebook newsfeed, all done up to look exactly like an Excel spreadsheet.
It’s not just a static graphic, either — HardlyWork.in lets you search for Facebook friends by entering names into the formula bar, load more items, check your newsfeed, wall, or tag photos, hover to see who liked a post, and there’s even a boss switch (the spacebar) that immediately changes everything into a vast sea of spreadsheet numbers all nestled within their legitimate-looking cells.
The only thing missing? Full-sized pics. But links are clickable, and you can see thumbnails when you hover your cursor over their descriptions. Besides, big pics would be a giveaway to the fact that you, uh, aren’t working.
Okay – I know what the killjoys are saying but…
The study by the University of Melbourne showed that people who use the internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 per cent more productive that those who do not.
Study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, said “workplace internet leisure browsing” or WILB, helped to sharpen workers’ concentration.
“People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration,” Coker said on the university’s website.
“Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity,” he said.
According to the study of 300 workers, 70 per cent of people who use the internet at work engage in WILB. Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites, playing online games and watching videos on YouTube.
“Firms spend millions on software to block their employees from watching videos, using social networking sites or shopping online under the pretence that it costs millions in lost productivity,” said Coker. “That’s not always the case.” However, Coker said the study looked at people who browsed in moderation, or were on the Internet for less than 20 percent of their total time in the office.