Can you imagine a life without social media? Probably not.
Well, when it comes to building your business, whether bootstrapped or otherwise, it can be very easy to get stuck in a loop of constant social media checking. You might think to yourself, what’s on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe you’re checking emails or doing other various activities. Whatever it is, there’s one thing you’re not doing–working. There’s something to be said for getting down to business and getting to work. The only problem is that it isn’t quite that simple. There’s something more to the social media OCD phenomenon that’s affecting your productivity.
In this post, we’re going to uncover together how social media is affecting you and how you can stop its negative effects on you.
The Facts2
The fact of the matter is that social media is an integral part of our lives and it can factor into the work that you do on a daily basis. With that said, there are things that you can do to negate some of its harmful effects and kick your addiction to it. Working in the cloud will allow you to kick some of that addiction since you will be working on the cloud and not on a physical server which can impact how productive you are.
If you want to build wealth and retire sooner, there are some things that you need to take advantage in. It turns out that the majority of Facebook users can’t go a day without checking their newsfeed. Some iPhone users check their Facebook and Twitter feed before getting up to go about their day. It’s estimated that the average American browses social media for one-fourth of their work day, all for non-work related reasons. This is bad enough for people who work for a company, but for freelancers and other enterprising individuals, this is just plain bad.
The majority of Americans admit that they don’t go online for anything other than to be entertained or amused. This adds up in the long run and can be disastrous for your bottom line. Obsessively checking your newsfeed, Facebook, email or Twitter is making it so you can’t get back to work. This is costing businesses big, and it’s time to recognize that it costs you big as well. It’s easy to ignore the problem and be aloof when other people are doing it on the job, but when you’re doing it, it’s time for you to check where your priorities are so that you can boost your engagement and drive forward in your career.
Believe it or not, checking individual social media sites have been proven to make people less happy. That means that not only are you wasting time that could be spent being productive, but you’re doing so while also putting a downer on your mood, which can further impact your bottom line.
Just like some people can hold their liquor and some people can curb their nicotine addiction, some people are more prone to getting addicted to social media than others. Even though this is the case, however, you shouldn’t let the possible fact that you’re more prone to social media addiction be a crutch that you use to avoid responsibility. Ultimately, you have control over the media that you consume. If we seem overly harsh, think of this as a bit of tough love. Sometimes people need to hear something a little harsh to motivate them to do things right.
You might not be an addict if you’re only spending 10 seconds or so every once in a while to check your newsfeed, but if you find that your life is negatively affected (especially your work life), then you need to take a serious look at what you’re doing in regards to your social media habits.
Let’s say for example that you’re a small business owner. You won’t want to assign more than two people to oversee the social media aspect of the company. You could have a social media manager in charge of this with perhaps the assistance of an assistant director. You can get regular updates regarding improvements, what’s being done differently, and how engagement with customers through social media is bringing in new leads or creating more loyal customers.
If you are a small business owner, you might want to block some of the more well-known social media sites (except the computers of the social media managers). You can also draft up an agreement regarding the usage of phones in the workplace. All of this might sound a bit extreme, but it will translate to massive improvements in how productive you are and will allow employees (and you) to focus more on the work that needs to be done than on what’s happening in social media world.
If you’re an entrepreneur who has a little bit more cash, you can invest in work phones that your employees can use on the job. This way, they’ll have microscopic reason to check their own devices when they’re on the clock and will instead use their work phones appropriately. The work phones will, of course, have protections against social media in place to ensure that it can’t be accessed.
Extreme Cases
There are in fact for cases of social media addiction where professional help is warranted. If you suspect that you or one of your own is at this level, then it might be best for you to reach out to social media rehab centers. Believe it or not, these places do exist, and they are seriously designed around getting treatment for people who are addicted to social media.
No matter what your situation is, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to manage the social media use of your employees, particularly since the operation grows to include employees who are working from home. When it comes to this, it’s useful to have a written agreement as to social media usage, and perhaps even keep track of that usage via the use of surveillance programs that can keep an eye on your employees and keep them honest.
There are extreme cases in everything that you look at; this isn’t something that’s new. What is new is that people are being enthralled in social media at a rate that’s unheard of. It’s causing a massive decrease in how productive you are, and it’s leading to declining in enjoyment of life. This is a problem we need to get our hands on before it gets out of control.
The Opposing Side: It’s nothing new.
The opposite aspect of this argument, however, argues that social media addiction is nothing new. The only thing that’s new about it is the type of dependence used to waste time while at work. The substance is all the same. Long before social media, employees were spending time online, and before the internet existed employees were using booze to cope or were congregating at the water cooler. This train of thought has some credence to it though it seems to not have as much at first glance.
The point in all of this is that the worker has to like their job. If workers do like their jobs, there’s much less incidence of social media addiction going on. In places where the employee is not engaged in their work, they seem to be further inclined to use social media compulsively. This brings up an interesting argument that it’s not the social media that’s at fault, but the job itself. If you find yourself bored with what you’re doing, then maybe it’s time to try something new.
The argument here is that if you limit the social media usage of employees on their computers, they’ll just get their fix on their smartphone. This is a good argument when you think about it. Employees are bound to get their social media fix in some way, and they might just as well be sitting in the office twiddling away on their phone and getting just as little work done as they would if they were on the computer ostensibly getting work done but not doing a thing.
All of this boils down to an issue of personal self-control. If you can manage to keep yourself away from the lure of social media, then you’ll be compelled to get more work done. You’ll have it for you to get the work done on time.
When it comes to building up your business, it can be all too easy to get stuck in a loop of constant social media checking. You might think to yourself, what’s on Facebook or Snapchat or you get into late nights invoicing clients. Maybe you’re checking your emails or doing other various activities. Whatever it is, there’s one thing that you’re not doing–working. There’s something to be said for getting down to business and getting to work. The only problem is that it isn’t quite that simple. There’s something more to the social OCD phenomenon that’s affecting your productivity.
