Anthony Bradley

In response to a Computerworld citing a study finding that “54% of U.S. companies say that they have banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace while on the job, I did a little survey of my own with these results. I left the survey up to possibly collect more responses (only 22 people took the survey the first time). Now there are 40 responses. Still not exactly statistically relevant numbers but here are the new results:

Q1. Does your employer leave the decision on social media access up to you (i.e., there is no policy)? Yes. 59% No: 43%

Q2. Does your employer encourage the productive use of social media Web sites? Yes: 46% No: 54%

Q3. Does your employer restrict access to specific social media Web sites such as facebook and YouTube? Yes: 49% No: 51%

4. Does your employer restrict all access to the Web from work devices? Yes: 5% No: 95%

Though responses almost doubled, the numbers didn’t change dramatically. But they did get slightly more conservative across all questions. Some people left comments. Here are some interesting ones:

• documents are published presenting Social Networks ( without clear distinction ) as dangerous system both for preserving information asset and as place where virus could infect your PC
• No encouragement or discouragement [of social media], but because the company has fairly conservative culture, most are choosing not use social computing just to be on the safe side.
• Hasn’t been encouraging it [social media] but that’s because they didn’t really understand it. Part of my job (I’m new) is to start it going
• [Access restrictions] done under the guise of bandwidth management, but it’s really an attempt to control the message.

Thanks to those who participated in the survey.