Web 2.0 Frequently Used By 71% Of Young Office Workers In The UK

2nd April 2007

A recent UK workplace survey commissioned by content security company, Clearswift, found that 71% of office workers aged 18-29 access social media sites at least a few times a week, while 39% access them several times a day. 27% of young office workers in the UK visit social media sites, for personal reasons, while at work.

42% of young workers actually discuss work-related issues on these social media sites.

While some companies might consider this to be a threat to information security, many others will see this as a positive trend as Web 2.0 interactions allow employees to be more resourceful and develop new ideas with external help that is otherwise not available within the organisation (without paying a hefty consultatation fee).

A parallel survey carried out in the US found 43% of the US workforce accessed social media sites from their computers at work. For both groups, sites such as YouTube, MySpace and blogs were extremely popular.

Surprisingly, 29% of organisations surveyed in the USA do not allow use of Web 2.0 social media sites at work.

The sample size for the survey was 2,629 adults in the UK, while that in the USA was 827 people from a variety of industries and organisation sizes.

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2 Responses to “Web 2.0 Frequently Used By 71% Of Young Office Workers In The UK”

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Office Runner : 2 January 2009 at 7:22 pm

I feel that social sites should be allowed to be viewed at work, as long as they contain information that is designed to help the viewer with different problems they may be having.
moneystight.blogtoolkit.com is an example of one such site that is for the viewer to get help about anything! If companies would allow this type of internet usage, it not only would be one of the perks of working there, but they would have much happier employees in the long run.

Discussion on social networks & blogs

Social Media Activity Costing Businesses | AccuraCast Search Daily News : 30 October 2008 at 12:46 pm

[...] Interestingly though, a couple of days after the FaceTime study was released, a study by Demos found that attempts to control employees’ use of such software could damage firms in the long run by limiting the way staff communicate. This could leave employers facing a conundrum – should they ban social networking in the workplace or not? [...]

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